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#'^ 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



Vol. XVII 



VAILIMA LETTERS 






LETTERS AND MISCEL- 
LANIES OF ROBERT 
LOUIS STEVENSON 



CORRESPONDENCE 
ADDRESSED TO 
SIDNEY COLVIN fe ^ 

NOVEMBER 1890 TO OCTOBER 1894 



^ PUBLISHED IN 
NEW YORK BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S 
SONS ^ ^ 1896 ^ 






Copyright, 1895, by 
Stone & Kimball. 

Copyright, 1896, by 
Charles Scribker's Sons. 



j EXCHA^'^ 

JAN 3^' ia46 

Serial 
Ttei 

Co;- 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

EDITORIAL NOTE vii 

LETTER 

I NOVEMBER, 1890 i 

II NOVEMBER 25— DECEMBER 2, 1890 19 

III DECEMBER, 1890 28 

IV JANUARY 17, 1891 40 

V FEBRUARY, 1891 44 

VI MARCH, 1891 47 

VII APRIL, 1891 ^6 

VIII APRIL 29— MAY 19, 1891 60 

IX JUNE, 1891 66 

X SEPTEMBER, 1891 70 

XI SEPTEMBER 28 — OCTOBER 13, 1891 80 

XII OCTOBER, 1891 87 

XIII NOVEMBER 25 — DECEMBER 7, 1891 94 

XIV DECEMBER, 1891— JANUARY 3, 1892 102 

XV JANUARY 31 — FEBRUARY, 1892 116 

XVI FEBRUARY — MARCH 2, 1892 120 

XVII MARCH 9— MARCH 30, 1892 127 

XVIII MAY 1— MAY 27, 1892 136 

XIX MAY 29— JUNE, 1892 155 

XX JULY 2— JULY 12,1892 174 

XXI AUGUST— SEPTEMBER 13, 1892 177 

XXII SEPTEMBER 15 — OCTOBER 8, 1892 191 

XXIII OCTOBER 28— NOVEMBER 8, 1892 196 

V 



CONTENTS 

LETTER PAGE 

XXIV DECEMBER i — DECEMBER 5, 1892 204 

XXV JANUARY— JANUARY 30, 1893 207 

XXVI FEBRUARY 19— FEBRUARY 23, 1893 ... .214 
XXVII FEBRUARY, 1893 217 

XXVIII APRIL— APRIL 22, 1893 219 

XXIX APRIL 25 — MAY 23, 1893 226 

XXX MAY 29— JUNE 15, 1893 234 

XXXI JUNE 24— JULY 18, 1895 243 

XXXII AUGUST, 1893 257 

XXXIII AUGUST 23 — SEPTEMBER 12, 1893 259 

XXXIV OCTOBER 23 — DECEMBER 4, 1893 267 

XXXV DECEMBER, 1893 273 

XXXVI JANUARY 29, 1894 279 

XXXVII FEBRUARY, 1894 281 

XXXVIII MARCH, 1894 283 

XXXIX MAY 18, 1894 288 

XL JUNE 18, 1894 .... 291 

XLI JULY, 1894 294 

XLII AUGUST 7— AUGUST 13, 1894 298 

XLIII SEPTEMBER, 1894 301 

XLIV OCTOBER 6, 1894 305 

EPILOGUE 311 

APPENDIX 316 



VI 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

SO much of preface seems necessary to this volume 
as may justify its publication and explain its origin. 
The writer was for many years my closest friend. It 
was in the summer of 1873 that a lady, whose gracious 
influence has helped to shape and encourage more 
than one distinguished career, first awakened my in- 
terest in him and drew us together. He was at that 
time a lad of twenty-two, with his powers not yet set 
nor his way of life determined. But to know him was 
to recognize at once that here was a young genius of 
whom great things might be expected. A slender, 
boyish presence, with a graceful, somewhat fantastic 
bearing, and a singular power and attraction in the 
eyes and smile, were the signs that first impressed you ; 
and the impression was quickly confirmed and deep- 
ened by the charm of his talk, which was irresistibly 
sympathetic and inspiring, and not less full of matter 
than of mirth. I have known no man in whom the 
poet's heart and imagination were combined with such 
a brilliant strain of humor and such an unsleeping alert- 
ness and adroitness of the critical intelligence. But it 
was only in conversation that he could as yet do 
himself justice. His earliest efforts in literature were 
of a very uneven and tentative quality. The reason 
partly was that in mode of expression and choice of 
language, not less than in the formation of opinion and 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

the conduct of life, he was impatient, even to excess, 
of the conventional, the accepted, and the trite. His 
perceptions and emotions were acute and vivid in the 
extreme; his judgments, whether founded on experi- 
ence, reading, discussion, or caprice (and a surprising 
amount of all these things had been crowded into his 
youthful existence), were not less fresh and personal; 
while to his ardent fancy the world was a theatre 
glowing with the lights and bustling with the inci- 
dents of romance. To find for all he had to say words 
of vital aptness and animation — to communicate as 
much as possible of what he has somewhere called 
" the incommunicable thrill of things " — was from the 
first his endeavour in literature, — nay more, it was 
the main passion of his life. The instrument that 
should serve his purpose could not be forged in haste, 
still less could it be adopted at second hand or ready 
made ; and he has himself narrated how long and toil- 
some was the apprenticeship he served. 

In those days, then, of Stevenson's youth it was my 
good fortune to be of use to him, partly by helping to 
soften parental opposition to his inborn vocation for 
letters, partly by recommending him to editors (Mr. 
Hamerton, Sir George Grove, and Mr. Leslie Stephen 
in succession), and a little even by such technical hints 
as a classical training and five years' seniority en- 
abled me to give. It belonged to the richness of his 
nature to repay in all things much for little, sxato/x^oc 
Ivveapoitov, and from these early relations sprang 
both the affection, to me inestimable, of which the 
following correspondence bears evidence, and the habit, 
which it pleased him to maintain after he had become 

viii 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

one of the acknowledged masters of English letters, of 
confiding in and consulting me about his work in 
progress. It was my business to find fault ; to * ' damn " 
what I did not like ; a duty which, as will be inferred 
from the following pages, I was accustomed to dis- 
charge somewhat unsparingly. But he was too manly 
a spirit to desire or to relish flattery, and too true an 
artist to be content with doing less than his best: he 
knew, moreover, in what rank of English writers I 
put him, and for what audience, not of to-day, I would 
have him labour. Tibi Palinure — so, in the last weeks 
of his life, he proposed to inscribe to me a set of his 
collected works. Not Palinurus so much as Polonius 
may perhaps — or so I sometimes suspect — have been 
really the character; but his own amiable view of the 
matter has to be mentioned in order to account for part 
of the tenor of the following correspondence. 

As a letter- writer, Mr. Stevenson was punctilious in 
business matters (herein putting some violence on his 
nature), indefatigable where there was a service to be 
requited or a kindness done, and to strangers and 
slight acquaintances ever courteous and attentive. I 
am not sure, indeed, but that in this capacity it was 
the outer and not the inner circle of his correspondents 
who, speaking generally, had the best of him. To his 
intimate friends he wrote charmingly indeed by fits, 
but often, at least in early days, in a manner not a little 
trying and tantalizing. With these, his correspondence 
was apt to be a thing wholly of moods. "Sordid 
facts," as he called them, were almost never mentioned: 
date and place one could never infer except from the 
postmark. He would exclaim over some predicament 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

to the nature of which he gave no due whatever, or 
appeal for sympathy in circumstances impossible to 
conjecture; or, starting in a key of vague poetry and 
sentiment, would wind up (in a manner characteristic 
also of his talk) with a rhapsody of hyperbolical slang. 
Or he would dilate on some new phase of his many 
maladies with burlesque humor, — with complaint 
never; but what had been the nature of the attack you 
were left to wonder and guess in vain. During the 
period of his Odyssey in the South Seas, from August, 
1888, until the spring of 1890, the remoteness and in- 
accessibility of the scenes he visited inevitably inter- 
rupted all correspondence for months together; and 
when at long intervals a packet reached us, the facts 
and circumstances of his wanderings were to be gath- 
ered from the admirable letters of Mrs. Stevenson (who 
has this feminine accomplishment in perfection) rather 
than from his own. But when, later in the last-men- 
tioned year, 1890, he and his family were settled on 
their newly bought property on the mountain behind 
Apia, to which he gave the name of Vailima (five 
rivers), he for the first time, to my infinite gratification, 
took to writing me long and regular monthly budgets 
as full and particular as heart could wish; and this 
practice he maintained until within a few weeks of his 
death. \ 

It is these journal-letters from Samoa, covering with 
a few intervals the period from November, 1890, to 
October, 1894, that are printed by themselves in the 
present volume. They occupy a place, as has been in- 
dicated, quite apart in his correspondence, and in any 
general selection from his letters would fill quite a dis- 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

proportionate space. Begun without a thought of pub- 
licity, and simply to maintain our intimacy undimin- 
ished, so far as might be, by separation, they assumed 
in the course of two or three years a bulk so consider- 
able, and contained so much of the matter of his daily 
life and thoughts, that it by and by occurred to him, as 
may be read on page 173, that " some kind of a book " 
might be extracted out of them after his death. It is 
this passage which has given me my warrant for their 
publication, and at the same time has imposed on me 
no very easy editorial task. In a correspondence so 
unreserved, the duty of suppression and selection must 
needs be delicate. Belonging to the race of Scott and. 
Dumas, of the romantic narrators and creators, Steven- 
son belonged no less to that of Montaigne and the liter- 
ary egotists. The word seems out of place, since of 
egotism in the sense of vanity or selfishness he was of 
all men the most devoid; but he was nevertheless a 
watchful and ever interested observer of the motions of 
his own mind. He saw himself, as he saw everything 
else (to borrow the words of Mr. Andrew Lang), with 
the lucidity of genius, and loved to put himself on terms 
of confidence with his readers ; but of confidence kept 
always within fit limits, and permitting no undue in- 
trusion into his private affairs and feelings. To main- 
tain the same limits in the editing of an intimate corre- 
spondence after his death would have been impossible. 
I have tried to do my best under the circumstances; to 
suffer no feelings to be hurt that could be spared, and 
only to lift the veil of family life so far as under the con- 
ditions was unavoidable. Neither would it have been 
possible from such a correspondence to expunge the 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

record of those trivialities which make up the chief part 
of life, even in surroundings so romantic and unusual 
as Stevenson in these years had chosen for himself. It 
belonged to the personal charm of the man that nothing 
ever seemed commonplace or insignificant in his com- 
pany; but in correspondence this charm must needs to 
some extent evaporate. 

Such as they remain, then, these letters will be found 
a varied record, perfectly frank and familiar, of the 
writer's every-day moods, thoughts, and doings during 
his Samoan exile. They tell, with the zest and often 
in the language of a man who remained to the last a 
boy in spirit, of the pleasures and troubles of a planter 
founding his home in the virgin soil of a tropical island ; 
the pleasures of an invalid beginning after many years 
to resume habits of outdoor life and exercise; the toils 
and satisfactions, failures and successes, of a creative 
artist whose invention was as fertile as his standards 
were high and his industry unflinching. These divers 
characters have probably never been so united in any 
man before. Something also they tell of the inward 
movements and affections of one of the bravest and ten- 
derest of human hearts. One part of his life, it should 
be said, which his other letters will fully reveal, finds 
little expression in these, namely, the relations of cordial 
and ungrudging kindness in which he stood towards 
the younger generation of writers at home, including 
those personally unknown to him. Neither do ordinary 
impressions of travel, — impressions of the beauties of 
the tropics and the captivating strangeness of the island 
people and their ways, — fill much space in them. These 
things were no longer new to the writer when the cor- 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

respondence began ; they had been part of the element 
of his life since the day, near two years before, when 
his yacht first anchored in the Bay of Nukahiva, and his 
soul, to quote his own words, " went down with these 
moorings whence no windlass may extract nor any 
diver fish it up ; and I, and some part of my ship's com- 
pany, were from that hour the bond-slaves of the isles 
of Vivien." In their stead we find, what to some read- 
ers may be hardly so welcome, the observations of a 
close student of native life, history, and manners, and 
some of the perplexities and preoccupations of an island 
politician. 

The political allusions are seldom in the form of direct 
statement or narrative. To understand them, the reader 
must bear in mind a few main facts, which I shall state 
as briefly and plainly as possible. At the date when 
Stevenson settled in Samoa, the government of the island 
had lately been settled between the three powers inter- 
ested, namely, Germany, England, and the United 
States, at the convention of Berlin. Under this con- 
vention, Malietoa Laupepa, who had previously been 
deposed and deported by the Germans in favor of a 
nominee of their own, was reinstated as king, to the 
exclusion of his kinsman, the powerful and popular 
Mataafa, whose titles might be held equally good, and 
whose abilities were certainly greater, but who was 
specially obnoxious to the Germans, owing to his resis- 
tance to them during the troubles of the previous years. 
For a time, the two kinsmen, Laupepa and Mataafa, 
lived on amicable terms ; but presently differences arose 
between them. Mataafa had expected to occupy a po- 
sition of influence in the government; finding himself 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

ignored, he withdrew to a camp a few miles outside the 
town of Apia, where he lived in semi-royal state as a 
kind of passive rebel or rival to the recognized king. In 
the mean time, in the course of the year 1891, the two 
white officials appointed under the Berlin Convention, 
namely, the Chief Justice, a Swedish gentleman named 
Cedarkrantz, and the President of the Council, Baron 
Senfft von Pilsach, had come out to the islands and en- 
tered on their duties. In Stevenson's judgment these 
gentlemen proved quite unequal to their task, — an opin- 
ion which before long came to be shared and acted on 
by the Foreign Offices of the three powers under whom 
they were appointed. Stevenson was no abstracted 
student or dreamer; the human interests and the human 
duties lying immediately about him were ever the first 
in his eyes ; and, petty and remote as these island con- 
cerns may appear to us, they were for him near and 
urgent. A man of his eager nature and persuasive 
powers must naturally acquire influence in any com- 
munity in which he may be thrown, and among the 
natives in especial by kindness, justice, and a sympa- 
thetic understanding of their ways and characters he 
soon came to enjoy a similar degree of authority. His 
unauthorized intervention in public matters may have 
been of a nature disconcerting to the official mind, but 
his purposes were at all times those of a peacemaker. 
The steady aim of his efforts was to bring about the 
withdrawal of the two discredited white officials (against 
whom, it will be seen, he had no personal animus what- 
ever) and to procure a reconciliation between Laupepa 
and Mataafa, so that the latter might exercise the share 
in the government due to his character, titles, and fol- 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

lowing. The first part of this policy commended itself 
after a time to the three powers and their agents, and 
was carried out; the second not; and his friend Mataafa 
was by and by attacked by the forces of Laupepa, beaten, 
and sent into exile. 

In reading the following pages it must be borne in 
mind that Mulinuu and Malie, the places respectively of 
Laupepa's and Mataafa's residence, are also used to 
signify their respective parties and followings. The 
reader will have no difficulty in identifying the various 
personages composing the family group, whose names 
occur constantly in the correspondence, namely, the 
writer's mother, his wife ("Fanny"), his stepson, Mr. 
Lloyd Osbourne (** Lloyd"), his stepdaughter and 
amanuensis, Mrs. Strong (** Belle "), and her young son 
('* Austin "). Explanation of any other matters seem- 
ing to require it is added in the footnotes. 

S. C. 

August, 1895. 



XV 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, 
Monday, November 2d, 1890. 

My dear Colvin, — This is a hard and interesting and 1890 
beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep ^^^• 
cleft in Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above 
the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling 
enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. 
I went crazy over outdoor work, and had at last to 
confine myself to the house, or literature must have gone 
by the board. Nothing is so interesting as weeding, 
clearing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers be- 
comes a disease ; it is quite an effort not to drop into the 
farmer; and it does make you feel so well. To come 
down covered with mud and drenched with sweat and 
rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, 
and take a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet con- 
science. And the strange thing that I mark is this : if I 
go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and ply- 
ing the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds 
me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot 
conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted. 
For near a fortnight I did not go beyond the verandah ; 
then I found my rush of work run out, and went down 
for the night to Apia ; put in Sunday afternoon with our 
consul, '' a nice young man," dined with my friend, H. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 J. Moors, in the evening, went to church — no less — 
^^^- at the white and half-white church — I had never been 
before, and was much interested ; the woman I sat next 
looked a full-blood native, and it was in the prettiest 
and readiest English that she sang the hymns ; back to 
Moors', where we yarned of the islands, being both 
wide wanderers, till bed-time; bed, sleep, breakfast, 
horse saddled ; round to the Mission, to get Mr. Clarke 
to be my interpreter; over with him to the King's, whom 
I have not called on since my return ; received by that 
mild old gentleman; have some interesting talk with 
him about Samoan superstitions and my land — the scene 
of a great battle in his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth — 
the place which we have cleared the platform of his fort 
— the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies — the fight 
rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to 
the Mission ; had a bit of lunch and consulted over a 
queer point of missionary policy just arisen, about our 
new Town Hall and the balls there — too long to go 
into, but a quaint example of the intricate questions 
which spring up daily in the missionary path.^ 

1" In the missionary work which is being done among the Samoans, 
Mr. Stevenson was especially interested. He was an observant, 
shrewd, yet ever generous critic of all our religious and educational or- 
ganizations. His knowledge of native character and life enabled him 
to understand missionary difficulties, while his genial contact with all 
sorts and conditions of men made him keen to detect deficiencies in 
men and methods, and apt in useful suggestion." The above is the tes- 
timony of the Mr. Clarke here mentioned (Rev. W. E. Clarke of the 
London Missionary Society). This gentleman was from the first one 
of the most valuable friends of Mr. Stevenson and his family in Samoa, 
and when the end came, read the funeral service beside his grave on 
Mount Vaea. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Then off up the hill ; Jack very fresh, the sun (close 1890 
on noon) staring hot, the breeze very strong and pleas- ^^^• 
ant; the ineffable green country all round — gorgeous 
little birds (I think they are humming-birds, but they 
say not) skirmishing in the wayside flowers. About a 
quarter way up I met a native coming down with the 
trunk of a cocoa palm across his shoulder; his brown 
breast glittering with sweat and oil : ** Talofa " — ** Ta- 
lofa, alii — You see that white man ? He speak for you. " 
"White man he gone up here.?" — "Joe (Yes)" — 
"Tofa, alii" — "Tofa, soifua!" I put on Jack up the 
steep path, till he is all as white as shaving stick — 
Brown's euxesis, wish I had some — past Tanugama- 
nono, a bush village — see into the houses as I pass — 
they are open sheds scattered on a green — seethe brown 
folk sitting there, suckling kids, sleeping on their stiff" 
wooden pillows — then on through the wood path — 
and here I find the mysterious white man (poor devil I) 
with his twenty years' certificate of good behaviour as 
a bookkeeper, frozen out by the strikes in the colonies, 
come up here on a chance, no work to be found, big ho- 
tel bill, no ship to leave in — and come up to beg twenty 
dollars because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to 
leave his portmanteau in pledge. Settle this, and on 
again ; and here my house comes in view, and a war 
whoop fetches my wife and Henry (or Simele), our Sa- 
moan boy, on the front balcony ; and I am home again, 
and only sorry that I shall have to go down again to 
Apia this day week. I could, and would, dwell here 
unmoved, but there are things to be attended to. 

Never say I don't give you details and news. That is 
a picture of a letter. 

3 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 I have been hard at work since I came; three chapters 
Nov. q|- jj^^ Wrecker, and since that, eight of the South Sea 
book, and along and about and in between, a hatful of 
verses. Some day I '11 send the verse to you, and you '11 
say if any of it is any good. I have got in a better vein 
with the South Sea book, as I think you will see; I 
think these chapters will do for the volume without 
much change. Those that I did in the Janet NicoU, un- 
der the most ungodly circumstances, I fear will want a 
lot of suppling and lightening, but I hope to have your 
remarks in a month or two upon that point. It seems 
a long while since I have heard from you. I do hope 
you are well. I am wonderful, but tired from so much 
work; 'tis really immense what I have done; in the 
South Sea book I have fifty pages copied fair, some of 
which has been four times, and all twice written ; cer- 
tainly fifty pages of solid scriving inside a fortnight, but 
I was at it by seven a. m. till lunch, and from two till 
four or five every day ; between whiles, verse and blow- 
ing on the flageolet; never outside. If you could see 
this place! but I don't want any one to see it till my 
clearing is done, and my house built. It will be a home 
for angels. 

So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some cold meat 
and bananas, on arrival. Then out to see where Henry 
and some of the men were clearing the garden ; for it 
was plain there was to be no work to-day indoors, and 
I must set in consequence to farmering. I stuck a good 
while on the way up, for the path there is largely my 
own handiwork, and there were a lot of sprouts and 
saplings and stones to be removed. Then I reached our 
clearing just where the streams join in one; it had a 

4 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

fine autumn smell of burning, the smoke blew in the 1890 
woods, and the boys were pretty merry and busy. ^°^- 
Now I had a private design: — 

The Vaita'e I had explored pretty far up ; not yet the 
other stream, the Vaituliga (g = nasal n, as ng in sing) ; 
and up that, with my wood-knife, 1 set off alone. It is 
here quite dry ; it went through endless woods ; about 
as broad as a Devonshire lane, here and there crossed 
by fallen trees ; huge trees overhead in the sun, drip- 
ping lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, ferns 
depending with air roots from the steep banks, great 







arums — I had not skill enough to say if any of them 
were the edible kind, one of our staples here! — hun- 
dreds of bananas — another staple — and alas! I had 
skill enough to know all of these for the bad kind that 
bears no fruit. My Henry moralised over this the other 
day; how hard it was that the bad banana flourished 
wild, and the good must be weeded and tended; and 

5 



i«9o 

Nov. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

I had not the heart to tell him how fortunate they were 
here, and how hungry were other lands by comparison. 
The ascent of this lovely lane of my dry stream filled me 
with delight. I could not but be reminded of old Mayne 
Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the 
tropics ; and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I 
would have written to tell him that, for me, it had come 
true; and I thought, forbye, that, if the great powers 
go on as they are going, and the Chief Justice delays, 
it would come truer still; and the war-conch vnW sound 
in the hills, and my home will be enclosed in camps, 
before the year is ended. And all at once — mark you, 
how Mayne Reid is on the spot — a strange thing hap- 
pened. I saw a liana stretch across the bed of the brook 
about breast-high, swung up my knife to sever it, and — 
behold, it was a wire! On either hand it plunged into 
thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where it goes and 
get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I know 
no more than — there it is. A little higher the brook 
began to trickle, then to fill. At last, as I meant to do 
some work upon the homeward trail, it was time to 
turn. I did not return by the stream ; knife in hand, as 
long as my endurance lasted, I was to cut a path in the 
congested bush. 

At first it went ill with me ; I got badly stung as high 
as the elbows by the stinging plant; I was nearly hung 
in a tough liana — a rotten trunk giving way under my 
feet; it was deplorable bad business. And an axe — if 
I dared swing one — would have been more to the pur- 
pose than my cutlass. Of a sudden things began to go 
strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing out again; 
my body began to wonder, then my mind ; I raised my 

6 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

eyes and looked ahead; and, by George, I was no longer 1890 
pioneering, I had struck an old track overgrown, and ^^■ 
was restoring an old path. So I laboured till I was in 
such a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs could 
scarce have found a name for it. Thereon desisted ; re- 
turned to the stream ; made my way down that stony 
track to the garden, where the smoke was still hanging 
and the sun was still in the high tree-tops, and so home. 
Here, fondly supposing my long day was over, I rubbed 
down; exquisite agony; water spreads the poison of 
these weeds ; I got it all over my hands, on my chest, 
in my eyes, and presently, while eating an orange, a la 
Raratonga, burned my lip and eye with orange juice. 
Now, all day, our three small pigs had been adrift, to 
the mortal peril of our corn, lettuce, onions, etc., and 
as I stood smarting on the back verandah, behold the 
three piglings issuing from the wood just opposite. 
Instantly I got together as many boys as I could — 
three, and got the pigs penned against the rampart of 
the sty, till the others joined ; whereupon we formed a 
cordon, closed, captured the deserters, and dropped 
them, squeaking amain, into their strengthened barracks 
where, please God, they may now stay ! 

Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you 
are not the head of a plantation, my juvenile friend. 
Politics succeeded : Henry got adrift in his English, Bene 
was too cowardly to tell me what he was after : result, 
I have lost seven good labourers, and had to sit down 
and write to you to keep my temper. Let me sketch 
my lads. — Henry — Henry has gone down to town or 
I could not be writing to you — this were the hour of 
his English lesson else, when he learns what he calls 

7 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 ''long explessions" or ''your chief's language" for 
°^' the matter of an hour and a half — Henry is a chiefling 
from Savaii; I once loathed, I now like and — pending 
fresh discoveries — have a kind of respect for Henry. 
He does good work for us ; goes among the labourers, 
bossing and watching; helps Fanny; is civil, kindly, 
thoughtful; O st sic semper! But will he be "his 
sometime self throughout the year " ? Anyway, he has 
deserved of us, and he must disappoint me sharply ere 
1 give him up. — Bene — or Peni — Ben, in plain Eng- 
lish — is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love 
him! God made a truckling coward, there is his full 
history. He cannot tell me what he wants ; he dares 
not tell me what is wrong; he dares not transmit my 
orders or translate my censures. And with all this, 
honest, sober, industrious, miserably smiling over the 
miserable issue of his own unmanliness. — Paul — a 
German — cook and steward — a glutton of work — a 
splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (i) no cook; (2) 
an inveterate bungler, a man with twenty thumbs, 
continually falling in the dishes, throwing out the din- 
ner, preserving the garbage; (3) a dr — , well, don't let 
us say that — but we dare n't let him go to town, and 
he — poor, good soul — is afraid to be let go. — Lafaele 
(Raphael), a strong, dull, deprecatory man; splendid 
with an axe, if watched ; the better for a rowing, when 
he calls me " Papa" in the most wheedling tones; des- 
perately afraid of ghosts, so that he dare not walk alone 
up in the banana patch — see map. The rest are chang- 
ing labourers; and to-night, owing to the miserable 
cowardice of Peni, who did not venture to tell me 
what the men wanted — and which was no more than 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

fair — all are gone — and my weeding in the article of 1890 
being finished ! Pity the sorrows of a planter. ^°^* 

I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you. The Planter, 

R. L. S. 

Tuesday, ^rd. 

I begin to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; 
you sit down every day and pour out an equable stream 
of twaddle. 

This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trou- 
ble had fallen to the lot of Peni himself, who deserved 
it; my field was full of weeders; and I am again able 
to justify the ways of God. All morning I worked 
at the South Seas, and finished the chapter I had stuck 
upon on Saturday. Fanny, awfully hove-to with 
rheumatics and injuries received upon the field of sport 
and glory, chasing pigs, was unable to go up and down 
stairs, so she sat upon the back verandah, and my work 
was chequered by her cries. '' Paul, you take a spade 
to do that — dig a hole first. If you do that, you '11 cut 
your foot off! Here, you boy, what you do there } You 
no get work } You go find Simele; he give you work. 
Peni, you tell this boy he go find Simele; suppose 
Simele no give him work, you tell him go 'way. I no 
want him here. That boy no good." — Peni (from the 
distance in reassuring tones), "All right, sir!" — 
Fanny (after a long pause), ' * Peni, you tell that boy go find 
Simele! I no want him stand here all day. I no pay 
that boy. I see him all day. He no do nothing." — 
Luncheon, beef, soda-scones, fried bananas, pineapple 
in claret, coffee. Try to write a poem; no go. Play 
the flageolet. Then sneakingly off to farmering and 

9 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 pioneering. Four gangs at work on our place; a lively 
^°^* scene; axes crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives 
are out. But I rob the garden party of one without a 
stock, and you should see my hand — cut to ribbons. 
Now I want to do my path up the Vaituliga single- 
handed, and I want it to burst on the public complete. 
Hence, with devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different 
places ; so that if you stumble on one section, you may 
not even then suspect the fulness of my labours. Ac- 
cordingly, I started in a new place, below the wire, and 
hoping to work up to it. It was perhaps lucky I had 
so bad a cutlass, and my smarting hand bid me stay be- 
fore I had got up to the wire, but just in season, so that 
I was only the better of my activity, not dead beat as 
yesterday. 

A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; 
away above, the sun was in the high tree-tops ; the lianas 
noosed and sought to hang me ; the saplings struggled, 
and came up with that sob of death that one gets to 
know so well; great, soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of 
the cutlass, little tough switches laughed at and dared 
my best endeavour. Soon, toiling down in that pit of 
verdure, I heard blows on the far side, and then laugh- 
ter. I confess a chill settled on my heart. Being so 
dead alone, in a place where by rights none should be 
beyond me, I was aware, upon interrogation, if those 
blows had drawn nearer, I should (of course quite un- 
affectedly) have executed a strategic movement to the 
rear; and only the other day I was lamenting my in- 
sensibility to superstition ! Am I beginning to be sucked 
in ? Shall I become a midnight twitterer like my neigh- 
bours ? At times I thought the blows were echoes ; at 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

times I thought the laughter was from birds. For our 1890 
birds are strangely human in their calls. Vaea moun- ^°^' 
tain about sun-down sometimes rings with shrill cries, 
like the hails of merry, scattered children. As a mat- 
ter of fact, I believe stealthy wood-cutters from Tanu- 
gamanono were above me in the wood and answerable for 
the blows ; as for the laughter, a woman and two chil- 
dren had come and asked Fanny's leave to go up 
shrimp-fishing in the burn; beyond doubt, it was these 
I heard. Just at the right time I returned; to wash 
down, change, and begin this snatch of letter before 
dinner was ready, and to finish it afterwards, before 
Henry has yet put in an appearance for his lesson in 
** long explessions." 

Dinner : stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas, 
new loaf-bread hot from the oven, pineapple in claret. 
These are great days; we have been low in the past; 
but now are we as belly-gods, enjoying all things. 

Wednesday. (Hist. Vailima resumed.) 
A gorgeous evening of after-glow in the great tree- 
tops and behind the mountain, and full moon over the 
lowlands and the sea, inaugurated a night of horrid 
cold. To you effete denizens of the so-called temperate 
zone, it had seemed nothing; neither of us could sleep; 
we were up seeking extra coverings, I know not at 
what hour — it was as bright as day. The moon right 
over Vaea — near due west, the birds strangely silent, 
and the wood of the house tingling with cold; I be- 
lieve it must have been 60^! Consequence: Fanny has 
a headache and is wretched, and I could do no work. 
(1 am trying all round for a place to hold my pen ; you 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 will hear why later on; this to explain penmanship.) 
Nov. J ^j-ote two pages, very bad, no movement, no life or 
interest; then 1 wrote a business letter; then took to toot- 
ling on the flageolet, till glory should call me farmering. 
I took up at the fit time Lafaele and Mauga — Mauga, 
accent on the first, is a mountain, I don't know what 
Mauga means — mind what I told you of the value of 
g — to the garden, and set them digging, then turned 
my attention to the path. I could not go into my bush 
path for two reasons: ist, sore hands; 2nd, had on my 
trousers and good shoes. Lucky it was. Right in the 
wild lime hedge which cuts athwart us just homeward 
of the garden, I found a great bed of kuikui — sensitive 
plant — our deadliest enemy. A fool brought it to this 
island in a pot, and used to lecture and sentimentalise 
over the tender thing. The tender thing has now 
taken charge of this island, and men fight it, with torn 
hands, for bread and life. A singular, insidious thing, 
shrinking and biting like a weasel; clutching by its 
roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought him, 
I bettered some verses in my poem, the Woodman;^ the 
only thought I gave to letters. Though the kuikui was 
thick, there was but a small patch of it, and when I was 
done I attacked the wild lime, and had a hand-to-hand 
skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this 
time, close by, in the cleared space of the garden, La- 
faele and Mauga were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, 
** Somebody he sing out." — "Somebody he sing out } 
All right. I go." And I went and found they had been 
whistling and '* singing out " for long, but the fold of the 
hill and the uncleared bush shuts in the garden so that 
1 Published in the New Review, January, 1895. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

no one heard, and I was late for dinner, and Fanny's 1890 
headache was cross; and when the meal was over, we °^* 
had to cut up a pineapple which was going bad, to 
make jelly of; and the next time you have a handful of 
broken blood-blisters, apply pineapple juice, and you 
will give me news of it, and 1 request a specimen of 
your hand of write five minutes after — the historic 
moment when I tackled this history. My day so far. 

Fanny was to have rested. Blessed Paul began mak- 
ing a duck-house; she let him be; the duck-house fell 
down, and she had to set her hand to it. He was then 
to make a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be 
again — he made a stair by which the pigs will proba- 
bly escape this evening, and she was near weeping. 
Impossible to blame the indefatigable fellow ; energy is 
too rare and good-will too noble a thing to discourage; 
but it's trying when she wants a rest. Then she had 
to cook the dinner; then, of course — like a fool and a 
woman — must wait dinner for me, and make a flurry 
of herself. Her day so far. Cetera adhunc desunt. 

Friday — / think. 

I have been too tired to add to this chronicle, which 
will at any rate give you some guess of our employ- 
ment. All goes well; the kuikui — (think of this mis- 
pronunciation having actually infected me to the extent 
of misspelling! tuitui is the word by rights) — the tuitui 
is all out of the paddock — a fenced park between the 
house and boundary; Peni's men start to-day on the 
road; the garden is part burned, part dug; and Henry, 
at the head of a troop of underpaid assistants, is hard at 
work clearing. The part clearing you will see from 

»3 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 the map; from the house run down to the stream-side, 
^°^* up the stream nearly as high as the garden ; then back 
to the star which I have just added to the map. 

My long, silent contests in the forest have had a strange 
effect on me. The unconcealed vitality of these vege- 
tables, their exuberant number and strength, the at- 
tempts — I can use no other word — of lianas to enwrap 
and capture the intruder, the awful silence, the know- 
ledge that all my efforts are only like the performance 
of an actor, the thing of a moment, and the wood will 
silently and swiftly heal them up with fresh efferves- 
cence ; the cunning sense of the tuitui, suffering itself 
to be touched with wind-swayed grasses and not mind- 
ing — but let the grass be moved by a man, and it shuts 
up ; the whole silent battle, murder, and slow death of 
the contending forest; weigh upon the imagination. 
My poem the Woodman stands ; but I have taken ref- 
uge in a new story, which just shot through me like a 
bullet in one of my moments of awe, alone in that tragic 
jungle : — 

The High Woods of Ulufanua.^ 

1. A South Sea Bridal. 

2. Under the Ban. 

3. Savao and Faavao. 

4. Cries in the High Wood. 

5. Rumour full of Tongues. 

6. The Hour of Peril. 

7. The Day of Vengeance. 

It is very strange, very extravagant, I dare say; but 

it's varied, and picturesque, and has a pretty love affair, 

1 Afterwards changed into The Beach of Falesd (see below, Letters 

VIII. X. XI.). 

14 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

and ends well. Ulufanua is a lovely Samoan word: 1890 
ulu = grove; fanua = land; grove-land — " the tops of ^°^- 
the high trees." Savao, ''sacred to the wood," and 
Faavao, ** wood-ways," are the names of two of the 
characters, Ulufanua the name of the supposed island. 
I am very tired, and rest off to-day from all but let- 
ters. Fanny is quite done up ; she could not sleep last 
night, something it seemed like asthma — I trust not. 
I suppose Lloyd will be about, so you can give him the 
benefit of this long scrawl. ^ Never say that I can't 
write a letter, say that I don't. — Yours ever, my dearest 
fellow, R. L. S. 

Later on Friday. 

The guid wife had bread to bake, and she baked it in 
a pan, O ! But between whiles she was down with me 
weeding sensitive in the paddock. The men have but 
now passed over it; I was round in that very place to 
see the weeding was done thoroughly, and already the 
reptile springs behind our heels. Tuitui is a truly strange 
beast, and gives food for thought. I am nearly sure — 
I cannot yet be quite, I mean to experiment, when I am 
less on the hot chase of the beast — that, even at the in- 
stant he shrivels up his leaves, he strikes his prickles 
downward so as to catch the uprooting finger; instinc- 
tive, say the gabies ; but so is man's impulse to strike 
out. One thing that takes and holds me is to see the 
strange variation in the propagation of alarm among 
these rooted beasts; at times it spreads to a radius (I 
speak by the guess of the eye) of five or six inches ; at 

1 Mr. Lloyd Osboume was at this time absent from his family on a 
visit to England. 

15 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 times only one individual plant appears frightened at a 
^°^- time. We tried how long it took one to recover; 't is 
a sanguine creature; it is all abroad again before (I guess 
again) two minutes. It is odd how difficult in this 
world it is to be armed. The double armour of this plant 
betrays it. In a thick tuft, where the leaves disappear, 
I thrust in my hand, and the bite of the thorns betrays 
the topmost stem. In the open again, and when I hesi- 
tate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine 
sense and retractile action betrays its identity at once. 
Yet it has one gift incomparable. Rome had virtue and 
knowledge; Rome perished. The sensitive plant has 
indigestible seeds — so they say — and it will flourish 
for ever. I give my advice thus to a young plant — 
have a strong root, a weak stem, and an indigestible 
seed; so you will outlast the eternal city, and your 
progeny will clothe mountains, and the irascible planter 
will blaspheme in vain. The weak point of tuitui is 
that its stem is strong. 

Supplementary Page, 
Here beginneth the third lesson, which is not from 
the planter but from a less estimable character, the 
writer of books. 
I want you to understand about this South Sea book.i 

1 The South Seas : a Record of Three Cruises: such was to be the 
title of the projected book, which was to narrate the experiences of the 
author and his family on their recent Pacific voyages, first in the yacht 
Casco, and afterwards; in the traders Equator and Janet Nicoll. His 
friends looked forward to it with the hope that it would surpass his 
early books of travels by all the difference between the beauty and 
strangeness of the tropic islands and the homeliness of the banks of 
Sambre and Oise or the desolation of the Cevennes. But the material, 
perhaps from its too great richness and novelty, perhaps from the au- 

16 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

The job is immense ; I stagger under material. I have 
seen the first big tache. It was necessary to see the 
smaller ones; the letters were at my hand for the pur- 
pose, but I was not going to lose this experience; and 
instead of writing mere letters, have poured out a 
lot of stuff for the book. How this works and fits, time 
is to show. But I believe, in time, I shall get the whole 
thing in form. Now, up to date, that is all my design, 
and I beg to warn you till we have the whole (or much) 
of the stuff together, you can hardly judge — and I can 
hardly judge. Such a mass of stuff is to be handled, if 
possible, without repetition — so much foreign matter 
to be introduced — if possible with perspicuity — and as 
much as can be, a spirit of narrative to be preserved. 
You will find that come stronger as I proceed, and get 
the explanations worked through. Problems of style 
are (as yet) dirt under my feet ; my problem is archi- 
tectural, creative — to get this stuff jointed and moving. 
If I can do that, I will trouble you for style ; anybody 
might write it, and it would be splendid; well-engi- 
neered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling 
— twig } 

This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff 
sent home is, I imagine, rot — and slovenly rot — and 
some of it pompous rot; and I want you to understand 
it's a lay-in. 

thor's desire to impart solid information instead of mere impressions, 
proved intractable in his hands; and the work never got beyond a num- 
ber of chapters in the form of letters, written with much less than his 
usual felicity, which were published in full in the New York Sun and, 
in part only, in Black and White. See below for further reference to 
the labour which this undertaking cost him and to his disappointment 
with the result. 

»7 



1590 
Nov. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I'll send you a 
^^^' whole lot to damn. You never said thank-you for the 
handsome tribute addressed to you from Apemama;^ 
such is the gratitude of the world to the God-sent poick. 
Well, well : — " Vex not thou the poick's mind, With thy 
coriaceous ingratitude, The P. will be to your faults more 
than a little blind, And yours is a far from handsome 
attitude." Having thus dropped into poetry in a spirit 
of friendship, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir, 
Your obedient humble servant, 

Silas Wegg. 
I suppose by this you will have seen the lad — and 
his feet will have been in the Monument — and his eyes 
beheld the face of George.2 Well! 
There is much eloquence in a well ! 
I am. Sir 
Yours 

The Epigrammatist 

^ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 



'> 



^O/, 



A^" 



'Ci 






^A. 



j' 



^4^ 



FINIS — EXPLICIT. 

1 The lines beginning " I heard the pulse of the besieging sea," 
printed in Longman's Magazine, January, 1895. 

2 "The Monument" was his name for my house at the British 
Museum, and George is my old faithful servant, George Went; born 
1819, died 1893. 

18 



II 



Vailima, Tuesday, November 2<^th, 1890. 

My dear Colvin, — I wanted to go out bright and 1890 

Nov 
early to go on with my survey. You never heard of 

that. The world has turned, and much water run under 
bridges, since I stopped my diary. I have written six 
more chapters of the book, all good I potently believe, 
and given up, as a deception of the devil's, the High 
Woods. I have been once down to Apia, to a huge 
native feast at Seumanutafa's, the chief of Apia. There 
was a vast mass of food, crowds of people, the police 
charging among them with whips, the whole in high 
good humour on both sides; infinite noise; and a his- 
toric event — Mr. Clarke, the missionary, and his wife, 
assisted at a native dance. On my return from this 
function, I found work had stopped; no more South 
Seas in my belly. Well, Henry had cleared a great deal 
of our bush on a contract, and it ought to be measured. 
I set myself to the task with a tape-line; it seemed a 
dreary business; then I borrowed a prismatic compass, 
and tackled the task afresh. I have no books; I had 
not touched an instrument nor given a thought to the 
business since the year of grace 1871 ; you can imagine 
with what interest I sat down yesterday afternoon to 
reduce my observations ; five triangles I had taken ; all 

»9 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 five came right, to my ineffable joy. Our dinner — 
'^' the lowest we have ever been — consisted of one avo- 
cado pear between Fanny and me, a ship's biscuit for 
the guidman, white bread for the Missis, and red wine 
for the twa. No salt horse, even, in all Vailima ! After 
dinner Henry came, and I began to teach him decimals; 
you wouldn't think I knew them myself after so long 
desuetude! 

I could not but wonder how Henry stands his even- 
ings here; the Polynesian loves gaiety — I feed him with 
decimals, the mariner's compass, derivations, grammar, 
and the like; delecting myself, after the manner of my 
race, moult tristement. I suck my paws ; I live for my 
dexterities, and by my accomplishments; even my 
clumsinesses are my joy — my woodcuts, my stumbling 
on the pipe, this surveying even — and even weeding 
sensitive — anything to do with the mind, with the eye, 
with the hand — with a part of me ; diversion flows in 
these ways for the dreary man. But gaiety is what these 
children want; to sit in a crowd, tell stories and pass 
jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with the 
girls. It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R. L. 
S., cetat 40. Which I am now past forty. Custodian, 
and not one penny the worse that I can see ; as amusable 
as ever; to be on board ship is reward enough for me; 
give me the wages of going on — in a schooner! Only, 
if ever I were gay, which I misremember, I am gay no 
more. And here is poor Henry passing his evenings on 
rhy intellectual husks, which the professors masticated; 
keeping the accounts of the estate — all wrong 1 have 
no doubt — I keep no check, beyond a very rough one; 
marching in with a cloudy brow, and the day-book 

20 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

under his arm; tackling decimals, coming with cases of 1890 
conscience — how would an English chief behave in ^^^• 
such a case ? etc. ; and, I am bound to say, on any glim- 
mer of a jest, lapsing into native hilarity as a tree 
straightens itself after the wind is by. The other night 
I remembered my old friend — I believe yours also — 
Scholastikos, and administered the crow and the anchor 
— they were quite fresh to Samoan ears (this implies a 
very early severance) — and I thought the anchor would 
have made away with my Simele altogether. 

Fanny's time, in this interval, has been largely occu- 
pied in contending publicly with wild swine. We have 
a black sow ; we call her Jack Sheppard ; impossible to 
confine her — impossible also for her to be confined! 
To my sure knowledge she has been in an interesting 
condition for longer than any other sow in story; else 
she had long died the death ; as soon as she is brought 
to bed, she shall count her days. I suppose that sow has 
cost us in days' labour from thirty to fifty dollars; as 
many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve 
hours in chase of her. Now it is supposed that Fanny 
has outwitted her; she grins behind broad planks in 
what was once the cook-house. She is a wild pig; far 
handsomer than any tame; and when she found the 
cook-house was too much for her methods of evasion, 
she lay down on the floor and refused food and drink 
for a whole Sunday. On Monday morning, she re- 
lapsed, and now eats and drinks like a little man. I 
am reminded of an incident. Two Sundays ago, the 
sad word was brought that the sow was out again; 
this time she had carried another in her flight. Moors 
and I and Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 there by the waterside we saw the black sow, looking 
^*^^- guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but Fanny's 
cri du c(rur was delicious: '' G-r-r! " she cried; ** no- 
body loves you! " 

I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart 
and cart-horses; the latter are dapple-grey, about six- 
teen hands, and of enormous substance; the former was 
a kind of red and green shandry-dan with a driving- 
bench ; plainly unfit to carry lumber or to face our road. 
(Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, 
is all made out of a bridle-track by my boys — and my 
dollars.) It was supposed a white man had been found 

— an ex-German artillery man — to drive this last; he 
proved incapable and drunken ; the gallant Henry, who 
had never driven before, and knew nothing about horses 

— except the rats and weeds that flourish on the islands 

— volunteered ; Moors accepted, proposing to follow and 
supervise: despatched his work and started after! No 
cart! he hurried on up the road — no cart. Transfer the 
scene to Vailima, where on a sudden to Fanny and me, 
the cart appears, apparently at a hard gallop, some 
two hours before it was expected ; Henry radiantly rul- 
ing chaos from the bench. It stopped : it was long be- 
fore we had time to remark that the axle was twisted 
like the letter L. Our first care was the horses. There 
they stood, black with sweat, the sweat raining from 
them — literally raining — their heads down, their feet 
apart — and blood running thick from the nostrils of the 
mare. We got out Fanny's underclothes — couldn't 
find anything else but our blankets — to rub them 
down, and in about half an hour we had the blessed 
satisfaction to see one after the other take a bit or two 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



of grass. But it was a toucher; a little more and these 1890 
steeds would have been foundered. ^°^- 



Monday, ^ist? November. 

Near a week elapsed, and no journal. On Monday 
afternoon, Moors rode up and I rode down with him, 
dined, and went over in the evening to the American 
Consulate; present, Consul-General Sewall, Lieut. Par- 
ker and Mrs. Parker, Lafarge the American decorator, 
Adams, an American historian; we talked late, and it 
was arranged I was to write up for Fanny, and we 
should both dine on the morrow. 

On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the Mission 
House, lunched at the German Consulate, went on 
board the Sperber (German war ship) in the afternoon, 
called on my lawyer on my way out to American Con- 
sulate, and talked till dinner time with Adams, whom 
I am supplying with introductions and information for 
Tahiti and the Marquesas. Fanny arrived a wreck, and 
had to lie down. The moon rose, one day past full, 
and we dined in the verandah, a good dinner on the 
whole; talk with Lafarge about art and the lovely 
dreams of art students.^ Remark by Adams, which 
took me briskly home to the Monument — " I only liked 

1 Mr. John Lafarge of New York, one of the most original and re- 
fined of living artists, whose record of his holiday in the South Seas, in 
the shape of a series of water-colour sketches of the scenery and people 
(with a catalogue full of interesting notes and observations) has been 
one of the features of the Champ de Mars Salon this year, and will, it 
may be hoped, be exhibited in London by the time these pages are 
published. 

23 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 ont young woman — and that was Mrs. Procter." ^ 
^°^* Henry James would like that. Back by moonlight in 
the consulate boat — Fanny being too tired to walk — 
to Moors' Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was off 
early to the Mission, where the politics are thrilling just 
now. The native pastors (to every one's surprise) 
have moved of themselves in the matter of the native 
dances, desiring the restrictions to be removed, or 
rather to be made dependent on the character of the 
dance. Clarke, who had feared censure and all kinds 
of trouble, is, of course, rejoicing greatly. A charac- 
teristic feature : the argument of the pastors was handed 
in in the form of a fictitious narrative of the voyage of one 
Mr. Pye, an English traveller, and his conversation with 
a chief; there are touches of satire in this educational 
romance. Mr. Pye, for instance, admits that he knows 
nothing about the Bible. At the Mission I was sought 
out by Henry in a devil of an agitation ; he had been 
made the victim of a forgery — a crime hitherto un- 
known in Samoa. I had to go to Folau, the chief judge 
here, in the matter. Folau had never heard of the of- 
fence, and begged to know what was the punishment; 
there may be lively times in forgery ahead. It seems 
the sort of crime to tickle a Polynesian. After lunch — 
you can see what a busy three days I am describing-^ 
we set off to ride home. My Jack was full of the devil 

1 Mrs. B. W. Procter, the step-daughter of Basil Montagu and widow 
of Barry Cornwall. The death of this spirited veteran in 1888 snapped 
away one of the last links with the days and memories of Keats and 
Coleridge. A shrewd and not too indulgent judge of character, she 
took R. L. S. into warm favour at first sight, and never spoke of or in- 
quired after him but with unwonted tenderness 

24 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

of corn and too much grass, and no work. I had to 1890 
ride ahead and leave Fanny behind. He is a most gal- ^°^' 
lant little rascal is my Jack, and takes the whole way as 
hard as the rider pleases. Single incident: half-way 
up, I find my boys upon the road and stop and talk 
with Henry in his character of ganger, as long as Jack 
will suffer me. Fanny drones in after; we make a 
show of eating — or I do — she goes to bed about half- 
past six ! I write some verses, read Irving's Washing- 
ton, and follow about half-past eight. O, one thing 
more I did, in a prophetic spirit. I had made sure 
Fanny was not fit to be left alone, and wrote before 
turning in a letter to Chalmers, telling him I could not 
meet him in Auckland at this time. By eleven at night, 
Fanny got me wakened — she had tried twice in vain 
— and I found her very bad. Thence till three, we 
laboured with mustard poultices, laudanum, soda and 
ginger — Heavens! wasn't it cold; the land breeze was 
as cold as a river; the moon was glorious in the pad- 
dock, and the great boughs and the black shadows of 
our trees were inconceivable. But it was a poor time. 
Sunday morning found Fanny, of course, a complete 
wreck, and myself not very brilliant. Paul had to go 
to Vailele re cocoa-nuts ; it was doubtful if he could be 
back by dinner ; never mind, said I, I'll take dinner 
when you return. Off set Paul. I did an hour's work, 
and then tackled the house work. I did it beautiful: 
the house was a picture, it resplended of propriety. 
Presently Mr. Moors' Andrew rode up, I heard the 
doctor was at the Forest House and sent a note to him; 
and when he came, I heard my wife telling him she had 
been in bed all day, and that was why the house was 

25 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 SO dirty! Was it grateful? Was it politic? Was it 
Nov. jj^ueP — Enough! In the interval, up marched little L. 
S., one of my neighbours, all in his Sunday white linens ; 
made a fine salute, and demanded the key of the kitch- 
en in German and English. And he cooked dinner 
for us, like a little man, and had it on the table and the 
coffee ready by the hour. Paul had arranged me this 
surprise. Some time later, Paul returned himself with 
a fresh surprise on hand; he was almost sober; nothing 
but a hazy eye distinguished him from Paul of the week 
days: vivat! 

On the evening I cannot dwell. All the horses got 
out of the paddock, went across, and smashed my neigh- 
bour's garden into a big hole. How little the amateur 
conceives a farmer's troubles. I went out at once with 
a lantern, staked up a gap in the hedge, was kicked at by 
a chestnut mare, who straightway took to the bush; 
and came back. A little after, they had found another 
gap, and the crowd were all abroad again. What has 
happened to our own garden nobody yet knows. 

Fanny had a fair night, and we are both tolerable this 
morning, only the yoke of correspondence lies on me 
heavy. I beg you will let this go on to my mother. I 
got such a good start in your letter, that I kept on at it, 
and I have neither time nor energy for more. 

Yours ever, 

R. L. S. 

Something new. 

1 was called from my letters by the voice of Mr. , 



who had just come up with a load of wood, roaring, 
** Henry! Henry! Bring six boys!" I saw there was 

26 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

something wrong, and ran out. The cart, half unloaded, 1890 
had upset with the mare in the shafts; she was all ^^" 
cramped together and all tangled up in harness and 

cargo, the off shaft pushing her over, Mr. holding 

her up by main strength, and right alongside of her — 
where she must fall if she went down — a deadly stick 
of a tree like a lance. I could not but admire the wis- 
dom and faith of this great brute; I never saw the rid- 
ing-horse that would not have lost its life in such a 
situation; but the cart-elephant patiently waited and 
was saved. It was a stirring three minutes, I can tell 
you. 

I forgot in talking of Saturday to tell of one incident 
which will particularly interest my mother. I met Dr. 
D. from Savaii, and had an age-long talk about Edin- 
burgh folk; it was very pleasant. He has been studying 
in Edinburgh, along with his son; a pretty relation. 
He told me he knew nobody but college people: **I 
was altogether a student," he said with glee. He seems 
full of cheerfulness and thick-set energy. I feel as if I 
could put him in a novel with effect; and ten to one, if I 
know more of him, the image will be only blurred. 

Tuesday, Dec. 2nd. 

I should have told you yesterday that all my boys Dec. 
were got up for their work in moustaches and side- 
whiskers of some sort of blacking — I suppose wood- 
ash. It was a sight of joy to see them return at night, 
axe on shoulder, feigning to march like soldiers, a cho- 
ragus with a loud voice singing out, ''March — step! 
March — step!" in imperfect recollection of some drill. 

Fanny seems much revived. R. L. S. 

27 



Dec 



III 



Monday, twenty -somethingth of 
December, 1890. 

890 My dear Colvin, — I do not say my Jack is anything 
extraordinary ; he is only an island horse ; and the pro- 
fane might call him a Punch ; and his face is like a don- 
key's; and natives have ridden him, and he has no 
mouth in consequence, and occasionally shies. But 
his merits are equally surprising; and 1 don't think I 
should ever have known Jack's merits if I had not been 
riding of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a 
dandy; he loves to misbehave in a gallant manner, 
above all on Apia Street, and when 1 stop to speak to 
people, they say (Dr. Stuebel the German consul said 
about three days ago), *' Oh, what a wild horse! it can- 
not be safe to ride him." Such a remark is Jack's re- 
ward, and represents his ideal of fame. Now when 1 
start out of Apia on a dark night, you should see my 
changed horse; at a fast steady walk, with his head 
down, and sometimes his nose to the ground — when 
he wants to do that he asks for his head with a little 
eloquent polite movement indescribable — he climbs the 
long ascent and threads the darkest of the wood. The 
first night I came it was starry ; and it was singular to 
see the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, 
and shine in the open end of the road, as bright as 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

moonlight at home; but the crypt itself was proof, 1890 
blackness lived in it. The next night it was raining. ^^^' 
We left the lights of Apia and passed into limbo. Jack 
finds a way for himself, but he does not calculate for 
my height above the saddle; and 1 am directed forward, 
all braced up for a crouch and holding my switch up- 
right in front of me. It is curiously interesting. In the 
forest, the dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights 
the whole ground is strewn with it, so that it seems 
like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is one of 
the things that feed the night fears of the natives; and 
I am free to confess that in a night of trackless darkness 
where all else is void, these pallid ignes suppositi have a 
fantastic appearance, rather bogey even. One night, 
when it was very dark, a man had put out a little lan- 
tern by the wayside to show the entrance to his ground. 
I saw the light, as I thought, far ahead, and supposed it 
was a pedestrian coming to meet me; I was quite taken 
by surprise when it struck in my face and passed be- 
hind me. Jack saw it, and he was appalled; do you 
think he thought of shying } No, sir, not in the dark ; 
in the dark Jack knows he is on duty; and he went 
past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he went, 
he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's 
steps we only pass one house — that where the lantern 
was; and about 1500 of these are in the darkness of the 
pit. But now the moon is on tap again, and the roads 
lighted. 

I have been exploring up the Vaituliga ; see your 
map. It comes down a wonderful fine glen ; at least 
200 feet of cliffs on either hand, winding like a cork- 
screw, great forest trees filling it. At the top there 

29 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 ought to be a fine double fall; but the stream evades it 

^^^' by a fault and passes underground. Above the fall it 

runs (at this season) full and very gaily in a shallow 

valley, some hundred yards before the head of the glen. 

Its course is seen full of grasses, like a flooded meadow ; 



j; 



'\ Xa 



\.-" 




that is the sink! beyond the grave of the grasses, the 
bed lies dry. Near this upper part there is a great 
show of ruinous pig- walls ; a village must have stood 
near by. 

To walk from our house to Wreck Hill (when the 
path is buried in fallen trees) takes one about half an 
hour, I think; to return not more than twenty minutes; 

30 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

I dare say fifteen. Hence I should guess it was three- 1890 
quarters of a mile. I had meant to join on my ex- ^^' 
plorations passing eastward by the sink; but, Lord! 
how it rains. 

{Later. ) 

I went out this morning with a pocket compass and 
walked in a varying direction, perhaps on an average 
S. by W., 1754 paces. Then I struck into the bush, 
N.W. by N., hoping to strike the Vaituliga above the 
falls. Now I have it plotted out I see I should have 
gone W. or even W. by S. ; but it is not easy to guess. 
For 600 weary paces 1 struggled through the bush, 
and then came on the stream below the gorge, where 
it was comparatively easy to get down to it. In the 
place where I struck it, it made cascades about a little 
isle, and was running about N.E., 20 to 30 feet wide, 
as deep as to my knee, and piercing cold. I tried to 
follow it down, and keep the run of its direction and 
my paces ; but when I was wading to the knees and 
the waist in mud, poison brush, and rotted wood, 
bound hand and foot in lianas, shovelled unceremoni- 
ously off the one shore and driven to try my luck upon 
the other — I saw I should have hard enough work to 
get my body down, if my mind rested. It was a 
damnable walk; certainly not half a mile as the crow 
flies, but a real bucketer for hardship. Once I had 
to pass the stream where it flowed between banks 
about three feet high. To get the easier down, I 
swung myself by a wild-cocoanut (so called, it bears 
bunches of scarlet nutlets) which grew upon the 
brink. As I so swung, I received a crack on the head 
that knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what 

3» 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 tree had taken a shy at me. So many towered above, 
^^' one over the other, and the missile, whatever it was, 
dropped in the stream and was gone before I had re- 
covered my wits. (I scarce know what I write, so 
hideous a Niagara of rain roars, shouts, and demonizes 
on the iron roof — it is pitch dark too — the lamp lit at 
5!) It was a blessed thing when I struck my own 
road ; and I got home, neat for lunch time, one of the 
most wonderful mud statues ever witnessed. In the 
afternoon I tried again, going up the other path by the 
garden, but was early drowned out; came home, 
plotted out what I had done, and then wrote this 
truck to you. 

Fanny has been quite ill with ear-ache. She won't 
go,^ hating the sea at this wild season; 1 don't like to 
leave her; so it drones on, steamer after steamer, and I 
guess it '11 end by no one going at all. She is in a 
dreadful misfortune at this hour; a case of kerosene 
having burst in the kitchen. A little while ago it was 
the carpenter's horse that trod in a nest of fourteen 
eggs, and made an omelette of our hopes. The 
farmer's lot is not a happy one. And it looks like 
some real uncompromising bad weather too. I wish 
Fanny's ear were well. Think of parties in Monu- 
ments ! think of me in Skerry vore, and now of this. It 
don't look like a part of the same universe to me. Work 
is quite laid aside ; I have worked myself right out. 

Christmas Eve. 

Yesterday, who could write.? My wife near crazy 
with ear-ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods 

1 On a projected expedition to Sydney. 

32 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

and playing hell's tattoo, like a tutti of battering rams, 1890 
on our sheet-iron roof; the wind passing high overhead ^^^' 
with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us full, so that 
all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung 
their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The 
horses stood in the shed like things stupid. The sea 
and the flagship lying on the jaws of the bay vanished 
in sheer rain. All day it lasted ; I locked up my papers 
in the iron box, in case it was a hurricane, and the 
house might go. We went to bed with mighty un- 
certain feelings; far more than on shipboard, where 
you have only drowning ahead — whereas here you 
have a smash of beams, a shower of sheet-iron, and a 
blind race in the dark and through a whirlwind for the 
shelter of an unfinished stable — and my wife with ear- 
ache! Well, well, this morning, we had word from 
Apia; a hurricane was looked for, the ships were to 
leave the bay by 10 a. m. ; it is now 3.30, and the flag- 
ship is still a fixture, and the wind round in the blessed 
east, so I suppose the danger is over. But heaven is 
still laden ; the day dim, with frequent rattling bucket- 
fuls of rain ; and just this moment (as I write) a squall 
went overhead, scarce striking us, with that singular, 
solemn noise of its passage, which is to me dreadful. I 
have always feared the sound of wind beyond every- 
thing. In my hell it would always blow a gale. 

I have been all day correcting proofs, and making out 
a new plan for our house. The other was too dear to be 
built now, and it was a hard task to make a smaller 
house that would suffice for the present, and not be a 
mere waste of money in the future. I believe I have 
succeeded ; I have taken care of my study anyway. 

33 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 Two favours I want to ask of you. First, I wish you 
^^^' to get *' Pioneering in New Guinea," by J. Chalmers. 
It's a missionary book, and has less pretensions to be 
literature than Spurgeon's sermons. Yet I think even 
through that, you will see some of the traits of the hero 
that wrote it; a man that took me fairly by storm for 
the most attractive, simple, brave, and interesting man 
in the whole Pacific. He is away now to go up the Fly 
River; a desperate venture, it is thought; he is quite a 
Livingstone card. 

Second, try and keep yourself free next winter; and 
if my means can be stretched so far, I'll come to Egypt 
and we '11 meet at Shepheard's Hotel, and you'll put me 
in my place, which I stand in need of badly by this 
time. Lord, what bully times! I 'suppose I'll come 
per British Asia, or whatever you call it, and avoid all 
cold, and might be in Egypt about November as ever 
was — eleven months from now or rather less. But do 
not let us count our chickens. 

Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our 
pig-pens. The great Lafaele appeared to my wife un- 
easy, so she engaged him in conversation on the sub- 
ject, and played upon him the following engaging- 
trick. You advance your two forefingers towards the 
sitter's eyes ; he closes them, whereupon you substitute 
(on his eyelids) the fore and middle fingers of the left 
hand; and with your right (which he supposes en- 
gaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you 
let him open his eyes, he sees you withdrawing the 
two forefingers. " What that ? " asked Lafaele. *'My 
devil," says Fanny. " I wake um, my devil. All right 
now. He go catch the man that catch my pig." About 

34 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

an hour afterwards, Lafaele came for further particulars. 1890 
''Oh, all right," my wife says. '' By and by, that man ^^^• 
he sleep, devil go sleep same place. By and by, that 
man plenty sick. I no care. What for he take my pig ?" 
Lafaele cares plenty ; 1 don't think he is the man, though 
he may be; but he knows him, and most likely will eat 
some of that pig to-night. He will not eat with relish. 



Saturday, 2yth. 
It cleared up suddenly after dinner, and my wife and 
I saddled up and off to Apia, whence we did not return 
till yesterday morning. Christmas Day 1 wish you 
could have seen our party at table. H. J. Moors at one 
end with my wife, I at the other with Mrs. M. ; between 
us two native women, Carruthers the lawyer. Moors' 
two shop-boys — Walters and A. M. the quadroon — 
and the guests of the evening, Shirley Baker, the de- 
famed and much-accused man of Tonga, and his son, 
with the artificial joint to his arm — where the assassins 
shot him in shooting at his father. Baker's appearance 
is not unlike John Bull on a cartoon; he is highly inter- 
esting to speak to, as I had expected ; I found he and I had 
many common interests, and were engaged in puzzling 
over many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was 
quite pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily 
pleased and prettily behaved. In the morning I should 
say I had been to lunch at the German Consulate, where 
I had as usual a very pleasant time. I shall miss Dr. 
StuebeU much when he leaves, and when Adams and 

1 See A Footnote to History for more in praise of Dr. Stuebel, and 
of his exceptional deserts among white officials in Samoa. 

35 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 Lafarge go also, it will be a great blow. I am getting 

^^^' spoiled with all this good society. 

On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs 
before seven; and they kept me in Apia till past ten, 
disputing, and consulting about brick and stone and 
native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and all 
sorts of otiose details about the chimney — just what I 
fled from in my father's office twenty years ago ; I should 
have made a languid engineer. Rode up with the car- 
penter. Ah, my wicked Jack ! on Christmas Eve, as I 
was taking the saddle bag off, he kicked at me, and 
fetched me too, right on the shin. On Friday, being 
annoyed at the carpenter's horse having a longer trot, 
he uttered a shrill cry and tried to bite him ! Alas, alas, 
these are like old days; my dear Jack is a Bogue,^ but I 
cannot strangle Jack into submission. 

I have given up the big house for just now ; we go 
ahead right away with a small one, which should be 
ready in two months, and I suppose will suffice for just 
now. 

I know I haven't told you about our attu, have I ? 
It is a lady, Attu fafine : she lives on the mountain-side ; 
her presence is heralded by the sound of a gust of wind ; 
a sound very common in the high woods; when she 
catches you, I do not know what happens ; but in prac- 
tice she is avoided, so I suppose she does more than 
pass the time of day. The great aitu Saumai-afe was 
once a living woman ; and became an aitu, no one under- 
stands how ; she lives in a stream at the well-head, her 
hair is red, she appears as a lovely young lady, her bust 

1 The wicked Skye-terrier of Bournemouth days, celebrated in the 
essay On the Character of Dogs. 

3^ 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

particularly admired, to handsome young men; these 1890 
die, her love being fatal; — as a handsome youth she ^^*^' 
has been known to court damsels with the like result, 
but this is very rare; as an old crone she goes about 
and asks for water, and woe to them who are uncivil! 
Saumai-afe means literally, ** Come here a thousand! " 
A good name for a lady of her manners. My aitu fafine 
does not seem to be in the same line of business. It is 
unsafe to be a handsome youth in Samoa; a young man 
died from her favours last month — so we said on this 
side of the island ; on the other, where he died, it was 
not so certain. I, for one, blame it on Madam Saumai- 
afe without hesitation. 

Example of the farmer's sorrows. I slipped out on 
the balcony a moment ago. It is a lovely morning, 
cloudless, smoking hot, the breeze not yet arisen. 
Looking west, in front of our new house, I saw two 
heads of Indian corn wagging, and the rest and all na- 
ture stock still. As I looked, one of the stalks subsided 
and disappeared. I dashed out to the rescue; two 
small pigs were deep in the grass — quite hid till within 
a few yards — gently but swiftly demolishing my har- 
vest. Never be a farmer. 

12.30 j^. m. 

I while away the moments of digestion by drawing 
you a faithful picture of my morning. When I had 
done writing as above it was time to clean our house. 
When I am working, it falls on my wife alone, but to- 
day we had it between us; she did the bedroom, I the 
sitting-room, in fifty-seven minutes of really most un- 
palatable labour. Then 1 changed every stitch, for I was 
wet through, and sat down and played on my pipe till 

37 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1890 dinner was ready, mighty pleased to be in a mildly 
' habitable spot once more. The house had been neg- 
lected for near a week, and was a hideous spot; my 
wife's ear and our visit to Apia being the causes : our 
Paul we prefer not to see upon that theatre, and God 
knows he has plenty to do elsewhere. 

I am glad to look out of my back door and see the 
boys smoothing the foundations of the new house ; 
this is all very jolly, but six months of it has satisfied 
me; we have too many things for such close quarters; 
to work in the midst of all the myriad misfortunes of 
the planter's life, seated in a Dyonisius' (can't spell him) 
ear, whence I catch every complaint, mishap and con- 
tention, is besides the devil ; and the hope of a cave of 
my own inspires me with lust. O to be able to shut 
my own door and make my own confusion! O to 
have the brown paper and the matches and *'make a 
hell of my own" once more! 

I do not bother you with all my troubles in these 
outpourings; the troubles of the farmer are inspiriting 
— they are like difficulties out hunting — a fellow rages 
at the time and rejoices to recall and to commemorate 
them. My troubles have been financial. It is hard to 
arrange wisely interests so distributed. America, Eng- 
land, Samoa, Sydney, everywhere I have an end of lia- 
bility hanging out and some shelf of credit hard by; 
and to juggle all these and build a dwelling-place here, 
and check expense — a thing I am ill fitted for — you 
can conceive what a night-mare it is at times. Then 
God knows I have not been idle. But since The Mas- 
ter^ nothing has come to raise any coins. I believe the 

1 Of Ballantrae. 
38 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



springs are dry at home, and now I am worked out, 1890 
and can no more at all. A holiday is required. ^^^• 

Dec. 2Sth. I have got unexpectedly to work again, 
and feel quite dandy. Good-bye. 

R. L. S. 



39 



IV 



5. Lubech, between Apia and Sydney. 
Jan. I'jth, 1 89 1. 

1891 My dear Colvin, — The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Jus- 
•'^"' tice, to speak your low language, has arrived. I had 
ridden down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun was 
down, the night was close at hand, so we rode fast; 
just as I came to the corner of the road before Apia, I 
heard a gun fire; and lo, there was a great crowd at 
the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a chief or 
two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu com- 
ing in his boat (the oarsmen all in uniform), bringing 
the Faamasino Sili sure enough. It was lucky he was 
no longer; the natives would not have waited many 
weeks. But think of it, as I sat in the saddle at the 
outside of the crowd (looking, the English consul said, 
as if I were commanding the manoeuvres), I was nearly 
knocked down by a stampede of the three consuls; 
they had been waiting their guest at the Matafele end, 
and some wretched intrigue among the whites had 
brought him to Apia, and the consuls had to run all the 
length of the town and come too late. 

The next day was a long one ; I was at a marriage 
of G. the banker to Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride 
and bridesmaids were all in the old high dress; the 
ladies were all native ; the men, with the exception of 
Seumanu, all white. 

40 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were 1891 
waiting, we had a bird's-eye view of the public recep- J^"* 
tion of the Chief Justice. The best part of it were some 
natives in war array ; with blacked faces, turbans, tapa 
kilts, and guns, they looked very manly and purpose- 
like. No, the best part was poor old drunken Joe, the 
Portuguese boatman, who seemed to think himself 
specially charged with the reception, and ended by 
falling on his knees before the Chief Justice on the end 
of the pier and in full view of the whole town and bay. 
The natives pelted him with rotten bananas ; how the 
Chief Justice took it I was too far off to see; but it was 
highly absurd. 

I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regi- 
men of the Faamasino Sili in the following canine 
verses, which, if you at all guess how to read them, are 
very pretty in movement, and (unless he be a mighty 
good man) too true in sense. 

We're quarrelling, the villages, we've beaten the wooden drums, 

Sa femisai o nu'u, sa taia o pate, 

Is expounded there by the justice, 

Ua Atuatuvale a le faamasino e. 

The chief justice, the terrified justice, 

Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se, 

Is on the point of running away the justice, 

O le a solasola le faamasino e. 

The justice denied any influence, the terrified justice, 

O le faamasino le ai a, le faamasino se, 

O le a solasola le faamasino e. 

Well, after this excursion into tongues that have never 
been alive — though I assure you we have one capital 
book in the language, a book of fables by an old mis- 

41 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 sionary of the unpromising name of Pratt, which is 
^^^' simply the best and the most literary version of the 
fables known to me. I suppose I should except La 
Fontaine, but L. F. takes a long time ; these are brief 
as the books of our childhood, and full of wit and liter- 
ary colour; and O, Colvin, what a tongue it would be 
to write, if one only knew it — and there were only 
readers. Its curse in common use is an incredible left- 
handed wordiness ; but in the hands of a man like Pratt 
it is succinct as Latin, compact of long rolling polysyl- 
lables and little and often pithy particles, and for beauty 
of sound a dream. Listen, I quote from Pratt — this is 
good Samoan, not canine — 

123 41 

O le afa, ua taalili ai le ulu vao, ua pa mai le faititili. 



I almost wa, 2 the two a"s just distinguished, 3 the 
ai is practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost vow. The 
excursion has prolonged itself 

I started by the Lubeck to meet Lloyd and my mother; 
there were many reasons for and against ; the main rea- 
son against was the leaving of Fanny alone in her blessed 
cabin, which has been somewhat remedied by my carter, 

Mr. , putting up in the stable and messing with 

her; but perhaps desire of change decided me not well, 
though I do think I ought to see an oculist, being very 
blind indeed, and sometimes unable to read. Anyway 
I left, the only cabin passenger, four and a kid in the 
second cabin, and a dear voyage it had like to have 
proved. Close to Fiji (choose a worse place on the 
map) we broke our shaft early one morning; and when 

42 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

or where we might expect to fetch land or meet with 1891 
any ship, I would like you to tell me. The Pacific is ^^"• 
absolutely desert. I have sailed there now some years ; 
and scarce ever seen a ship except in port or close by; 
I think twice. It was the hurricane season besides and 
hurricane waters. Well, our chief engineer got the 
shaft — it was the middle crank shaft — mended; thrice 
it was mended, and twice broke down; but now keeps 
up — only we dare not stop, for it is almost impossible 
to start again. The captain in the meanwhile crowded 
her with sail ; fifteen sails in all, every stay being grati- 
fied with a stay-sail, a boat-boom sent aloft for a main- 
topgallant yard, and the derrick of a crane brought in 
service as bowsprit. All the time we have had a fine, 
fair wind and a smooth sea; to-day at noon our run 
was 203 miles (if you please!), and we are within some 
360 miles of Sydney. Probably there has never been a 
more gallant success; and I can say honestly it was 
well worked for. No flurry, no high words, no long 
faces; only hard work and honest thought; a pleasant, 
manly business to be present at. All the chances were 
we might have been six weeks — ay, or three months 
at sea — or never turned up at all, and now it looks as 
though we should reach our destination some five days 
too late. 



43 



[Ow Board Ship between Sydney and Apia, 
Feb. 1891. 

1891 My dear Colvin, — The Janet Nicoll stuff was rather 
Pe^- worse than I had looked for; you have picked out all 
that is fit to stand, bar two others (which I don't dislike) 
— The Port of Entry and the House of Temoana; that 
is for a present opinion; I may condemn these also ere 
1 have done. By this time you should have another 
Marquesan letter, the worst of the lot, I think; and 
seven Paumotu letters, which are not far out of the vein, 
as I wish it ; lam in hopes the Hawaiian stuff is better 
yet: time will show, and time will make perfect. Is 
something of this sort practicable for the dedication } 

TERRA MARiaUE 

PER PERICULA PER ARDUA 

AMICAE COMITI 

D. D. 
AMANS VIATOR 

Tis a first shot concocted this morning in my 
berth: I had always before been trying it in Eng- 
lish, which insisted on being either insignificant or ful- 
some : I cannot think of a better word than comes, there 
being not the shadow of a Latin book on board ; yet 
sure there is some other. Then viator (though it sounds 

44 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

all right) is doubtful; it has too much, perhaps, the 1891 
sense of wayfarer ? Last, will it mark sufficiently that ^^^• 
I mean my wife ? And first, how about blunders ? I 
scarce wish it longer. 

Have had a swingeing sharp attack in Sydney ; beat- 
ing the fields for two nights, Saturday and Sunday. 
Wednesday was brought on board, tel quel, a wonder- 
ful wreck; and now, Wednesday week, am a good 
deal picked up, but yet not quite a Samson, being still 
groggy afoot and vague in the head. My chess, for in- 
stance, which is usually a pretty strong game, and de- 
fies all rivalry aboard, is vacillating, devoid of resource 
and observation, and hitherto not covered with custom- 
ary laurels. As for work, it is impossible. We shall 
be in the saddle before long, no doubt, and the pen 
once more couched. You must not expect a letter un- 
der these circumstances, but be very thankful for a note. 
Once at Samoa, I shall try to resume my late excellent 
habits, and delight you with journals, you unaccus- 
tomed, I unaccustomed ; but it is never too late to mend. 

It is vastly annoying that I cannot go even to Sydney 
without an attack; and heaven knows my life was 
anodyne. I only once dined with anybody ; at the club 
with Wise; worked all morning — a terrible dead pull; 
a month only produced the imperfect embryos of two 
chapters ; lunched in the boarding-house, played on my 
pipe; went out and did some of my messages; dined 
at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, 
whist, or Van John with my family. This makes a 
cheery life after Samoa ; but it isn't what you call burn- 
ing the candle at both ends, is it ? (It appears to me 
not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I 

45 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 am done with it, this dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a 
^^^' strange kind of novel under construction; it begins 
about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps I may continue it 
to 1875 or so, with another life. One, two, three, four, 
five, six generations, perhaps seven, figure therein ; two 
of my old stories, ''Delafield" and ''Shovel," are in- 
corporated; it is to be told in the third person, with 
some of the brevity of history, some of the detail of ro- 
mance. The Shovels of Newton French will be the 
name. The idea is an old one ; it was brought to birth 
by an accident; a friend in the islands who picked up 
F. Jenkin,^ read a part, and said: ''Do you know, 
thafs a strange book.? I like it; I don't believe the 
public will; but I like it." He thought it was a novel! 
" Very well," said 1, " we'll see whether the public will 
like it or not; they shall have the chance." 

Yours ever, 

R. L. S. 

1 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, by R. L. S. Prefixed to Papers Lit- 
erary, Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F. R. S., L L. D. ; 
2 vols, London, Longmans, 1887. The first chapters of this memoir 
consist of a genealogical history of the family. Of " Delafield " I never 
heard; the plan of " Shovel," which was to be in great part a story of 
the Peninsula War, had been sketched out as long ago as the seventies. 



46 



VI 



Friday, March i^th. 



My dear S. C, — You probably expect that now I 1^9^ 
am back at Vailima I shall resume the practice of the 
diary letter. A good deal is changed. We are more; 
solitude does not attend me as before; the night is 
passed playing Van John for shells; and, what is not 
less important, I have just recovered from a severe ill- 
ness, and am easily tired. 

I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the 
lower rooms of the new house, where my wife has re- 
cently joined me. We have two beds, an empty case 
for a table, a chair, a tin basin, a bucket and a jug; next 
door in the dining-room, the carpenters camp on the 
floor, which is covered with their mosquito nets. Be- 
fore the sun rises, at 5.45 or 5.50, Paul brings me tea, 
bread, and a couple of eggs ; and by about six I am at 
work. I work in bed — my bed is of mats, no mattress, 
sheets, or filth — mats, a pillow, and a blanket — and 
put in some three hours. It was 9. 5 this morning when 
I set off to the stream-side to my weeding; where I 
toiled, manuring the ground with the best enricher, 
human sweat, till the conch-shell was blown from our 
verandah at 10.30. At eleven we dine; about half-past 
twelve I tried (by exception) to work again, could make 

47 



1891 

Mar. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

nothing on't, and by one was on my way to the weed- 
ing, where I wrought till three. Half-past five is our 
next meal, and I read Flaubert's Letters till the hour 
came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold, and 
I being tired, came over to my den in the unfinished 
house, where I now write to you, to the tune of the 
carpenters' voices, and by the light — I crave your par- 
don — by the twilight of three vile candles filtered 
through the medium of my mosquito bar. Bad ink be- 
ing of the party, I write quite blindfold, and can only 
hope you may be granted to read that which I am un- 
able to see while writing. 

I said I was tired; it is a mild phrase; my back aches 
like toothache ; when I shut my eyes to sleep, I know 
i shall see before them — a phenomenon to which both 
Fanny and 1 are quite accustomed — endless vivid deeps 
of grass and weed, each plant particular and distinct, so 
that I shall lie inert in body, and transact for hours the 
mental part of my daily business, choosing the noxious 
from the useful. And in my dreams I shall be hauling 
on recalcitrants, and suffering stings from nettles, stabs 
from citron thorns, fiery bites from ants, sickening re- 
sistances of mud and slime, evasions of slimy roots, dead 
weight of heat, sudden puffs of air, sudden starts from 
bird-calls in the contiguous forest — some mimicking my 
name, some laughter, some the signal of a whistle, and 
living over again at large the business of my day. 

Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field- 
work in continual converse and imaginary correspon- 
dence. I scarce pull up a weed, but I invent a sentence 
on the matter to yourself; it does not get written ; au- 
tant en emportent Ics vents ; but the intent is there, and 

48 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

for me (in some sort) the companionship. To-day, for 1891 
instance, we had a great talk. I was toiling, the sweat ^^^' 
dripping from my nose, in the hot fit after a squall of 
rain: methought you asked me — frankly, was I happy. 
Happy (said I); I was only happy once; that was at 
Hyeres ; it came to an end from a variety of reasons, de- 
cline of health, change of place, increase of money, age 
with his stealing steps; since then, as before then, I 
know not what it means. But I know pleasure still; 
pleasure with a thousand faces, and none perfect, a 
thousand tongues all broken, a thousand hands, and all 
of them with scratching nails. High among these I 
place this delight of weeding out here alone by the gar- 
rulous water, under the silence of the high wood, bro- 
ken by incongruous sounds of birds. And take my life 
all through, look at it fore and back, and upside down, — 
though I would very fain change myself, — I would not 
change my circumstances, unless it were to bring you 
here. And yet God knows perhaps this intercourse of 
writing serves as well; and I wonder, were you here 
indeed, would I commune so continually with the 
thought of you. 1 say I wonder for a form ; I know, 
and I know I should not. 

So far and much further, the conversation went, while 
I groped in slime after viscous roots, nursing and spar- 
ing little spears of grass, and retreating (even with out- 
cry) from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder if any 
one had ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and 
have held for so long.? This business fascinates me like 
a tune or a passion ; yet all the while I thrill with a strong 
distaste. The horror of the thing, objective and sub- 
jective, is always present to my mind; the horror of 

49 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 creeping things, a superstitious horror of the void and 
the powers about me, the horror of my own devastation 
and continual murders. The life of the plants comes 
through my finger-tips, their struggles go to my heart 
like supplications. I feel myself blood-boltered ; then I 
look back on my cleared grass, and count myself an 
ally in a fair quarrel, and make stout my heart. 

It is but a little while since 1 lay sick in Sydney, beating 
the fields about the navy and Dean Swift and Dryden's 
Latin hymns ; judge if I love this reinvigorating climate, 
where I can already toil till my head swims and every 
string in the poor jumping Jack (as he now lies in bed) 
aches with a kind of yearning strain, difficult to suffer 
in quiescence. 

As for my damned literature,^ God knows what a 
business it is, grinding along without a scrap of inspira- 
tion or a note of style. But it has to be ground, and 
the mill grinds exceeding slowly though not particularly 
small. The last two chapters have taken me considera- 
bly over a month, and they are still beneath pity. This 
I cannot continue, time not sufficing; and the next will 
just have to be worse. All the good I can express is 
just this ; some day, when style revisits me, they will 
be excellent matter to rewrite. Of course, my old cure 
of a change of work would probably answer, but 1 can- 
not take it now. The treadmill turns ; and with a kind 
of desperate cheerfulness, I mount the idle stair. I 
haven't the least anxiety about the book ; unless I die, 
I shall find the time to make it good ; but the Lord de- 
liver me from the thought of the Letters! However, 
the Lord has other things on hand; and about six to- 

1 The South Sea Letters. 
50 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

morrow, I shall resume the consideration practically, 1891 
and face (as best I may) the fact of my incompetence ^^''• 
and disaffection to the task. Toil I do not spare ; but 
fortune refuses me success. We can do more, What- 
ever-his-name-was, we can deserve it. But my mis- 
desert began long since, by the acceptation of a bargain 
quite unsuitable to all my methods.^ 

To-day I have had a queer experience. My carter 
has from the first been using my horses for his own 
ends ; when I left for Sydney, I put him on his honour 
to cease, and my back was scarce turned ere he was 
forfeit. I have only been waiting to discharge him; 
and to-day an occasion arose. I am so much the old 
man virulent, so readily stumble into anger, that I gave 
a deal of consideration to my bearing, and decided at 

last to imitate that of the late . Whatever he might 

have to say, this eminently effective controversialist 
maintained a frozen demeanour and a jeering smile. 
The frozen demeanour is beyond my reach ; but I could 
try the jeering smile ; did so, perceived its efficacy, kept 
in consequence my temper, and got rid of my friend, 
myself composed and smiling still, he white and shak- 
ing like an aspen. He could explain everything; I said 
it did not interest me. He said he had enemies; I said 
nothing was more likely. He said he was calumniated ; 
with all my heart, said I, but there are so many liars, 
that I find it safer to believe them. He said, in justice 
to himself, he must explain : God forbid, I should inter- 
fere with you, said I, with the same factitious grin, but 
it can change nothing. So I kept my temper, rid my- 

1 The price advanced for these Letters was among the considerations 
which originally induced the writer to set out on his Pacific voyage. 

51 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1 89 1 self of an unfaithful servant, found a method of conduct- 
^^^' ing similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own 
liking. One thing more : I learned a fresh tolerance for 
the dead ; he too had learned — perhaps had in- 
vented — the trick of this manner; God knows what 
weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. Ce 
que c'est que de nous; poor human nature; that at past 
forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the first time, 
and rejoice to find it effective ; that the effort of main- 
taining an external smile should confuse and embitter a 
man's soul. 

To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead 
from six till eleven, from twelve till two ; with the in- 
terruption of the interview aforesaid ; a damned letter is 
written for the third time ; I dread to read it, for I dare 
not give it a fourth chance — unless it be very bad in- 
deed. Now I write you from my mosquito curtain, to 
the song of saws and planes and hammers, and wood 
clumping on the floor above; in a day of heavenly 
brightness ; a bird twittering near by ; my eye, through 
the open door, commanding green meads, two or three 
forest trees casting their boughs against the sky, a forest- 
clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the door- 
jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, 
bleak March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors 
wide open in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and 
melt in the closure of mosquito bars, and burn to be out 
in the breeze. A few torn clouds — not white, the sun 
has tinged them a warm pink — swim in heaven. In 
which blessed and fair day, I have to make faces and 
speak bitter words to a man — who has deceived me, 
it is true — but who is poor, and older than I, and a kind 

52 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the mas- 1891 
sacre of weeds. 

Sunday. 
When I had done talking to you yesterday, I played 
on my pipe till the conch sounded, then went over to 
the old house for dinner, and had scarce risen from table 
ere I was submerged with visitors. The first of these 
despatched, I spent the rest of the evening going over 
the Samoan translation of my Bottle Imp ^ with Claxton 
the missionary; then to bed, but being upset, I suppose, 
by these interruptions, and having gone all day without 
my weeding, not to sleep. For hours I lay awake and 
heard the rain fall, and saw faint, far-away lightning over 
the sea, and wrote you long letters which I scorn to re- 
produce. This morning Paul was unusually early; the 
dawn had scarce begun when he appeared with the 
tray and lit my candle ; and I had breakfasted and read 
(with indescribable sinkings) the whole of yesterday's 
work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, 
and sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor 
good ; it was as slack as journalism,but not so inspired ; it 
was excellent stuff misused, and the defects stood gross 
on it like humps upon a camel. But could I, in my 
present disposition, do much more with it t in my 
present pressure for time, were I not better employed 
doing another one about as ill, than making this some 

1 The first serial tale, says Mr. Clarke, ever read by Samoans in their 
own language was the story of the Bottle Imp, " which found its way 
into print at Samoa, and was read with wonder and delight in many a 
thatched Samoan hut before it won the admiration of readers at home." 
In the English form the story was published first in Black and White, 
and afterwards in the volume called Island Nights' Entertainments. 

53 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 thousandth fraction better? Yes, I thought; and tried 
^^^' the new one, and behold, I could do nothing: my head 
swims, words do not come to me, nor phrases, and I 
accepted defeat, packed up my traps, and turned to com- 
municate the failure to my esteemed correspondent. I 
think it possible I overworked yesterday. Well, we'll 
see to-morrow — perhaps try again later. It is indeed 
the hope of trying later that keeps me writing to you. 
If I take to my pipe, I know myself — all is over for the 
morning. Hurray, I'll correct proofs ! 

Pago-Pago, Wednesday. 

After I finished on Sunday I passed a miserable day ; 
went out weeding, but could not find peace. I do not 
like to steal my dinner, unless I have given myself a holi- 
day in a canonical manner; and weeding after all is 
only fun, the amount of its utility small, and the thing 
capable of being done faster and nearly as well by a 
hired boy. In the evening Sewall came up (American 
consul) and proposed to take me on a malaga,^ which I 
accepted. Monday I rode down to Apia, was nearly all 
day fighting about drafts and money ; the silver prob- 
lem does not touch you, but it is (in a strange and I 
hope passing phase) making my situation difficult in 
Apia, About eleven, the flags were all half-masted ; it 
was old Captain Hamilton (Samesoni the natives called 
him) who had passed away. In the evening I walked 
round to the U. S. Consulate; it was a lovely night 
with a full moon ; and as I got round to the hot corner 
of Matautu I heard hymns in front. The balcony of the 
dead man's house was full of women singing; Mary 

1 Boating expedition. 

54 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



liSQl 



(the widow, a native) sat on a chair by the doorstep, 
and I was set beside her on a bench, and next to Paul ^^' 
the carpenter; as I sat down I had a glimpse of the old 
captain, who lay in a sheet on his own table. After 
the hymn was over, a native pastor made a speech 
which lasted a long while; the light poured out of the 
door and windows; the girls were sitting clustered at 
my feet; it was choking hot. After the speech was 
ended, Mary carried me within; the captain's hands 
were folded on his bosom, his face and head were com- 
posed; he looked as if he might speak at any moment; 
I have never seen this kind of waxwork so express or 
more venerable; and when I went away, I was con- 
scious of a certain envy for the man who was out of 
the battle. All night it ran in my head, and the next 
day when we sighted Tutuila, and ran into this beautiful 
land-locked loch of Pago-Pago (whence I write), Cap- 
tain Hamilton's folded hands and quiet face said a great 
deal more to me than the scenery. 

I am living here in a trader's house; we have a good 
table, Sewall doing things in style ; and I hope to bene- 
fit by the change, and possibly get more stuff for Let- 
ters. In the meanwhile, I am seized quite mal-a-pro- 
pos with desire to write a story. The Bloody Wedding, 
founded on fact — very possibly true, being an attempt 
to read a murder case — not yet months old, in this very 
place and house where I now write. The indiscretion 
is what stops me ; but if I keep on feeling as I feel just 
now it will have to be written. Three Star Nettison, 
Kit Nettison, Field the Sailor, these are the main charac- 
ters : old Nettison, and the captain of the man of war, 
the secondary. Possible scenario. Chapter I. . . . 

55 



VII 



Saturday, April \^th. 

My dear Colvin, — I got back on Monday night, after 
1891 twenty-three hours in an open boat; the keys were 
P" * lost; the Consul (who had promised us a bottle of Bur- 
gundy) nobly broke open his store-room, and we got 
to bed about midnight. Next morning the blessed 
Consul promised us horses for the daybreak ; forgot all 
about it, worthy man ; set us off at last in the heat of 
the day, and by a short cut which caused infinite 
trouble, and we were not home till dinner. I was exten- 
uated, and have had a high fever since, or should have 
been writing before. To-day for the first time, I risk it. 
Tuesday I was pretty bad; Wednesday had a fever to 
kill a horse ; Thursday I was better, but still out of abil- 
ity to do ought but read awful trash. This is the time 
one misses civilisation ; I wished to send out for some 
police novels; Montepin would have about suited my 
frozen brain. It is a bother when all one's thought 
turns on one's work in some sense or other; I could 
not even think yesterday ; I took to inventing dishes by 
way of entertainment. Yesterday, while I lay asleep 
in the afternoon, a very lucky thing happened; the 
Chief Justice came to call; met one of our employes on 
the road; and was shown what I had done to the road. 

** Is this the road across the island } " he asked. 
56 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

'' The only one," said Innes. 1891 

" And has one man done all this ?" P"^' 

''Three times," said the trusty Innes. "It has had 

to be made three times, and when Mr. Stevenson came, 

it was a track like what you see beyond." 

"This must be put right," said the Chief Justice. 

Sunday. 

The truth is, I broke down yesterday almost as 
soon as I began, and have been surreptitiously finish- 
ing the entry to-day. For all that I was much better, 
ate all the time, and had no fever. The day was other- 
wise uneventful. I am reminded; I had another visitor 
on Friday; and Fanny and Lloyd, as they returned 
from a forest raid, met in our desert, untrodden road, 
first Father Didier, Keeper of the conscience of Mataafa, 
the rising star; and next the Chief Justice, sole stay of 
Laupepa, the present and unsteady star, and remember, 
a few days before we were close to the sick bed and 
entertained by the amateur physician of Tamasese, the 
late and sunken star. " That is the fun of this place," 
observed Lloyd; "everybody you meet is so impor- 
tant." Everybody is also so gloomy. It will come to 
war again, is the opinion of all the well informed — 
and before that to many bankruptcies ; and after that, as 
usual, to famine. Here, under the microscope, we can 
see history at work. 

Wednesday. 

I have been very neglectful. A return to work, per- 
haps premature, but necessary, has used up all my pos- 
sible energies and made me acquainted with the living 

57 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 headache. I just jot down some of the past notabilia. 

April. Yesterday B., a carpenter, and K., my (unsuccessful) 
white man, were absent all morning from their work; 
I was working myself, where I hear every sound with 
morbid certainty, and I can testify that not a hammer 
fell. Upon inquiry I found they had passed the morn- 
ing making ice with our ice machine and taking the 
horizon with a spirit level! I had no sooner heard this 
than — a violent headache set in; I am a real employer 
of labour now, and have much of the ship captain when 
aroused ; and if I had a headache, I believe both these 
gentlemen had aching hearts. I promise you, the late 

was to the front; and K., who was the most 

guilty, yet (in a sense) the least blamable, having the 
brains and character of a canary-bird, fared none the 
better for B.'s repartees. I hear them hard at work this 
morning, so the menace may be blessed. It was just 
after my dinner, just before theirs, that I administered 
my redoubtable tongue — it is really redoubtable — to 
these skulkers. (Paul used to triumph over Mr. J. for 
weeks. '' I am very sorry for you," he would say; 
''you're going to have a talk with Mr. Stevenson when 
he comes home; you don't know what that is!") In 
fact, none of them do, till they get it. I have known K., 
for instance, for months ; he has never heard me com- 
plain, or take notice, unless it were to praise; I have 
used him always as my guest, and there seems to be 
something in my appearance which suggests endless, 
ovine long-suffering ! We sat in the upper verandah all 
evening, and discussed the price of iron roofing, and 
the state of the draught-horses, with Innes, a new man 
we have taken, and who seems to promise well. 

58 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

One thing embarrasses me. No one ever seems to 1891 
understand my attitude about that book; the stuff sent "^P"^' 
was never meant for other than a first state; I never 
meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I 
have never had one hour of inspiration since it was be- 
gun, and have only beaten out my metal by brute force 
and patient repetition, I hoped some day to get a *'spat 
of style" and burnish it — fine mixed metaphor. I am 
now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done 
and some more written that will be wanted, simply to 
make a book of it by the pruning-knife. I cannot fight 
longer; I am sensible of having done worse than I 
hoped, worse than I feared ; all I can do now is to do 
the best I can for the future, and clear the book, like a 
piece of bush, with axe and cutlass. Even to produce 
the MS. of this will occupy me, at the most favourable 
opinion, till the middle of next year; really five years 
were wanting, when I could have made a book; but 
I have a family and — perhaps I could not make the 
book after all. 



59 



VIII 



1891 My dear Colvin, — I begin again. I was awake this 
P" • morning about half-past four. It was still night, but I 
made my fire, which is always a delightful employ- 
ment, and read Lockhart's "Scott" until the day began 
to peep. It was a beautiful and sober dawn, a dove- 
coloured dawn, insensibly brightening to gold. I was 
looking at it some while over the down-hill profile of 
our eastern road, when I chanced to glance northward, 
and saw with extraordinary pleasure the sea lying out- 
spread. It seemed as smooth as glass, and yet I knew 
the surf was roaring all along the reef, and indeed, if I 
had listened, I could have heard it — and saw the white 
sweep of it outside Matautu. 

I am out of condition still, and can do nothing, and 
toil to be at my pen, and see some ink behind me. 
I have taken up again The High Woods of Ulufanua. I 
still think the fable too fantastic and far-fetched. But, 
on a re-reading, fell in love with my first chapter, and 
for good or evil I must finish it. It is really good, well 
fed with facts, true to the manners, and (for once in 
my works) rendered pleasing by the presence of a hero- 
ine who is pretty. Miss Una is pretty ; a fact. All my 
other women have been as ugly as sin, and like Falco- 

60 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

net's horse (I have just been reading the anecdote in 1891 
Lockhart), mortes forbye. ^P"^* 

News: Our old house is now half demolished; it is 
to be rebuilt on a new site; now we look down upon 
and through the open posts of it like a bird-cage, to the 
woods beyond. My poor Paulo has lost his father and 
succeeded to thirty thousand thalers (1 think); he had 
to go down to the Consulate yesterday to send a legal 
paper; got drunk, of course, and is still this morning in 
so bemused a condition that our breakfasts all went 
wrong. Lafaele is absent at the deathbed of his fair 
spouse; fair she was, but not in deed, acting as harlot 
to the wreckers at work on the warships, to which so- 
ciety she probably owes her end, having fallen off a 
cliff, or been thrust off it — inter pocula. Henry is the 
same, our stand-by. In this transition stage he has 
been living in Apia; but the other night he stayed up, 
and sat with us about the chimney in my room. It was 
the first time he had seen a fire in a hearth ; he could 
not look at it without smiles, and was always anxious 
to put on another stick. We entertained him with the 
fairy tales of civilisation — theatres, London, blocks in 
the street. Universities, the Underground, newspapers, 
etc., and projected once more his visit to Sydney. If 
we can manage, it will be next Christmas. (I see it 
will be impossible for me to afford a further journey this 
winter.) We have spent since we have been here 
about ^^2500, which is not much if you consider we 
have built on that three houses, one of them of some 
size, and a considerable stable, made two miles of road 
some three times, cleared many acres of bush, made 
some miles of path, planted quantities of food, and en- 

61 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

i8^i closed a horse paddock and some acres of pig run; but 
^P"^' 'tis a good deal of money regarded simply as money. 
K. is bosh; 1 have no use for him; but we must do 
what we can with the fellow meanwhile; he is good- 
humored and honest, but ineificient, idle himself, the 
cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a self-excuser — 
all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty weeks' 
service — the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry 
is almost the only one of our employes who has a 
credit. 

May \']th. 
May. Well, am I ashamed of myself? I do not think so. 
I have been hammering Letters ever since, and got three 
ready and a fourth about half through ; all four will go 
by the mail, which is what I wish, for so I keep at least 
my start. Days and days of unprofitable stubbing and 
digging, and the result still poor as literature, left- 
handed, heavy, unillumined, but I believe readable and 
interesting as matter. It has been no joke of a hard 
time, and when my task was done, I had little taste for 
anything but blowing on the pipe. A few necessary 
letters filled the bowl to overflowing. 

My mother has arrived, young, well, and in good 
spirits. By desperate exertions, which have wholly 
floored Fanny, her room was ready for her, and the 
dining-room fit to eat in. It was a famous victory. 
Lloyd never told me of your portrait till a few days 
ago ; fortunately, I had no pictures hung yet ; and the 
space over my chimney waits your counterfeit present- 
ment. I have not often heard anything that pleased me 
more ; your severe head shall frown upon me and keep 

62 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

me to the mark. But why has it not come? Have 1891 
you been as forgetful as Lloyd ? ^^^* 

iSth. 

Miserable comforters are ye all ! I read your esteemed 
pages this morning by lamplight and the glimmer of the 
dawn, and as soon as breakfast was over, I must turn 
to and tackle these despised labours! Some courage 
was necessary, but not wanting. There is one thing at 
least by which I can avenge myself for my drubbing, 
for on one point you seem impenetrably stupid. Can 
I find no form of words which will at last convey to 
your intelligence the fact that these letters were never 
meant, and are not now meant, to be other than a quarry 
of materials from which the book may be drawn ? There 
seems something incommunicable in this (to me) simple 
idea; I know Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I doubt if 
he has grasped it now ; and 1 despair, after all these efforts, 
that you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by 
reading that form of words once more, and see if a light 
does not break. You may be sure, after the friendly free- 
doms of your criticism (necessary I am sure, and whole- 
some I know, but untimely to the poor labourer in his 
landslip) that mighty little of it will stand. 

Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go 
home to the Hie Germanie. This is a tile on our head, 
and if a shower, which is now falling, lets up, I must 
go down to Apia, and see if I can find a substitute of any 
kind. This is, from any point of view, disgusting; above 
all, from that of work; for whatever the result, the mill 
has to be kept turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is 
the proceed. Well, there is gold in the dust, which is 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 a fine consolation, since — well, I can't help it; night 

^^^' or morning, I do my darndest, and if I cannot charge 

for merit, I must e'en charge for toil, of which I have 

plenty and plenty more ahead before this cup is drained ; 

sweat and hyssop are the ingredients. 

We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig 
fence. Twenty-eight powerful natives with Catholic 
medals about their necks, all swiping in like Trojans; 
long may the sport continue ! 

The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to 
see your expressive, but surely not benignant counte- 
nance ! Adieu, O culler of offensive expressions — ' ' and 
a' to be a posy to your ain dear May ! " — Fanny seems 
a little revived again after her spasm of work. Our 
books and furniture keep slowly draining up the road, 
in a sad state of scatterment and disrepair; I wish the 
devil had had K. by his red beard before he had packed 
my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards — a thing 
to make a bibliomaniac shed tears — are fished out of 
odd corners. But I am no bibliomaniac, praise Heaven, 
and 1 bear up, and rejoice when I find anything safe. 

However, I worked five hours on the brute, and fin- 
ished my Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last 
night by consequence. Haven't had a bad night since 
I don't know when; dreamed a large, handsome man 
(a New Orleans planter) had insulted my wife, and, do 
what I pleased, I could not make him fight me; and 
woke to find it was the eleventh anniversary of my 
marriage. A letter usually takes me from a week to 
three days; but I 'm sometimes two days on a page — 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

I was once three — and then my friends kick me. 1891 
C est-y-bete I I wish letters of that charming quality ^^^' 
could be so timed as to arrive when a fellow wasn't 
working at the truck in question ; but, of course, that 
can't be. Did not go down last night. It showered all 
afternoon, and poured heavy and loud all night. 

You should have seen our twenty-five popes (the 
Samoan phrase for a Catholic, lay or cleric) squatting 
when the day's work was done on the ground outside 
the verandah, and pouring in the rays of forty-eight 
eyes through the back and the front door of the dining- 
room, while Henry and I and the boss pope signed the 
contract. The second boss (an old man) wore a kilt 
(as usual) and a Balmoral bonnet with a little tartan 
edging and the tails pulled off. I told him that hat be- 
longed to my country — Sekotia ; and he said, yes, that 
was the place that he belonged to right enough. And 
then all the Papists laughed till the woods rang; he was 
slashing away with a cutlass as he spoke. 

The pictures have decidedly not come; they may 
probably arrive Sunday. 



IX 



June, 1 89 1. 

1891 Sir, — To you, under your portrait, which is, in ex- 
June. pression, your true, breathing self, and up to now sad- 
dens me; in time, and soon, I shall be glad to have it 
there ; it is still only a reminder of your absence. Fanny 
wept when we unpacked it, and you know how little 
she is given to that mood; I was scarce Roman myself, 
but that does not count — I lift up my voice so readily. 
These are good compliments to the artist. I write in 
the midst of a wreck of books, which have just come 
up, and have for once defied my labours to get straight. 
The whole floor is filled with them, and (what 's worse) 
most of the shelves forbye; and where they are to go 
to, and what is to become of the librarian, God knows. 
It is hot to-night, and has been airless all day, and I am 
out of sorts, and my work sticks, the devil fly away with 
it and me. We had an alarm of war since last I wrote 
my screeds to you, and it blew over, and is to blow 
on again, and the rumour goes they are to begin by kill- 
ing all the whites. I have no belief in this, and should 
be infinitely sorry if it came to pass — I do not mean for 
^ that were otiose — but for the poor, deluded school- 
boys, who should hope to gain by such a step. 

66 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

[Letter resumed^] 1891 

June 20th. J""e. 

No diary this time. Why ? you ask. I have only sent 
out four Letters, and two chapters of the Wrecker. Yes, 
but to get these I have written 132 pp., 66,000 words in 
thirty days ; 2200 words a day ; the labours of an elephant. 
God knows what it's like, and don't ask me, but 
nobody shall say I have spared pains. I thought for 
some time it wouldn't come at all. I was days and 
days over the first letter of the lot — days and days 
writing and deleting and making no headway what- 
ever, till I thought I should have gone bust ; but 
it came at last after a fashion, and the rest went a 
thought more easily, though I am not so fond as to 
fancy any better. 

Your opinion as to the Letters as a whole is so damna- 
tory that I put them by. But there is a '* hell of a want 
of" money this year. And these Gilbert Island papers, 
being the most interesting in matter, and forming a 
compact whole, and being well illustrated, I did think 
of as a possible resource. 

It would be called 



Six Months in Melanesia, 
Two Island Kings, 

Monarchies, 

Gilbert Island Kings, 
Monarchies, 



and I daresay I'll think of a better yet — and would di- 
vide thus: — 

67 





VAILIMA LETTERS 


1891 


Butaritarl 


June. 


A Tov^n asleep. 


II. 


The Three Brothers. 


III. 


Around our House. 


IV. 


A Tale of a Tapu. 


V. 


The Five Days' Festival. 


VI. 


Domestic Life — (which might be 




but not well, better be recast). 




The King of Apemama. 


VII. 


The Royal Traders. 


VIII. 


Foundation of Equator Town. 


IX. 


The Palace of Mary Warren. 


X. 


Equator Town and the Palace. 


XI. 


King and Commons. 


XII. 


The Devil Work Box. 


XIII. 


The Three Corslets. 


XIV. 


Tail piece ; the Court upon a Journey. 



I wish you to watch these closely, judging them as a 
whole, and treating them as I have asked you, and 
favour me with your damnatory advice. I look up at 
your portrait, and it frowns upon me. You seem to 
view me with reproach. The expression is excellent ; 
Fanny wept when she saw it, and you know she is not 
given to the melting mood. She seems really better; I 
have a touch of fever again, I fancy overwork, and to- 
day, when I have overtaken my letters, I shall blow on 
my pipe. Tell Mrs. S. I have been playing Le Chant 
d' Amour lately, and have arranged it, after awful trou- 
ble, rather prettily for two pipes; and it brought her 
before me with an effect scarce short of hallucination. 
I could hear her voice in every note ; yet I had forgot 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

the air entirely, and began to pipe it from notes as some 1891 
thing new, when I was brought up with a round turn ^^^^' 
by this reminiscence. We are now very much installed ; 
the dining-room is done, and looks lovely. Soon we 
shall begin to photograph and send you our circum- 
stances. My room is still a howling wilderness. I 
sleep on a platform in a window, and strike my mos- 
quito bar and roll up my bedclothes every morning, so 
that the bed becomes by day a divan. A great part of 
the floor is knee-deep in books, yet nearly all the shelves 
are filled, alas! It is a place to make a pig recoil, yet 
here are my interminable labours begun daily by lamp- 
light, and sometimes not yet done when the lamp has 
once more to be lighted. The effect of pictures in this 
place is surprising. They give great pleasure. 

June 2 1st. 

A word more. I had my breakfast this morning at 
4.30 ! My new cook has beaten me and (as Lloyd says) 
revenged all the cooks in the world. I have been hunt- 
ing them to give me breakfast early since I was twenty ; 
and now here comes Mr. Ratke, and I have to plead for 
mercy. 1 cannot stand 4.30; I am a mere fevered 
wreck; it is now half-past eight, and I can no more, 
and four hours divide me from lunch, the devil take the 
man! Yesterday it was about 5.30, which I can stand; 
day before 5, which is bad enough ; to-day, I give out. 
It is Hke a London season, and as I do not take a siesta 
once in a month, and then only five minutes, I am being 
worn to the bones, and look aged and anxious. 

We have Rider Haggard's brother here as a Land 
Commissioner; a nice kind of a fellow; indeed, all the 
three Land Commissioners are very agreeable. 

69 



X 



Sunday, Sept. 5 (?), 1891. 

1891 My dear Colvin,^ — Yours from Lochinver has just 
^P*' come. You ask me if I am ever homesick for the High- 
lands and the Isles. Conceive that for the last month I 
have been living there between 1786 and 1850, in my 
grandfather's diaries and letters. I bad to take a rest ; 
no use talking ; so 1 put in a month over my Lives of 
the Stevensons with great pleasure and profit and some 
advance; one chapter and a part drafted. The whole 
promises well. Chapter i. Domestic Annals. Chapter 
II. The Northern Lights. Chapter iii. The Bell Rock. 
Chapter iv. A Family of Boys. Chap. v. The Grand- 
father. VI. Alan Stevenson, vii. Thomas Stevenson. 
My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null ; 
for my grandfather copious and excellent. Name, a 
puzzle. A Scottish Family, A Family of Engineers, 
'Northern Lights, The Engineers of the Northern Lights : 
A Family History. Advise ; but it will take long. Now, 
imagine if I have been homesick for Barrahead and Island 
Glass, and Kirkwall, and Cape Wrath, and the Wells 
of the Pentland Firth; I could have wept. 

1 Between this letter and the preceding, one has gone astray. It 
was chiefly concerned with the disturbed state of Samoan affairs, the 
threatenings of war, and the mismanagement of the two treaty officials. 

70 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Now for politics. I am much less alarmed; I believe 1891 
the malo (= raj, government) will collapse and cease ^^P** 
like an overlain infant, without a shot fired. They have 
now been months here on their big salaries — and Ce- 
darcrantz, whom I specially like as a man, has done 
nearly nothing, and the Baron, who is well-meaning, 
has done worse. They have these large salaries, and 
they have all the taxes ; they have made scarce a foot 
of road ; they have not given a single native a position 
— all to white men ; they have scarce laid out a penny 
on Apia, and scarce a penny on the King; they have 
forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing as Sa- 
moans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. 
The Chief Justice has refused to pay his customs! 
The President proposed to have an expensive house 
built for himself, while the King, his master, has none! 
I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a 
silent subject, up to then ; but now I snap my fingers at 
their malo. It is damned, and I'm damned glad of it. 
And this is not all. Last '"IVainiu, ' ' when I sent Fanny 
off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief 
Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve his 
mind. I showed my way of thought to his guest. 
Count Wachtmeister, whom 1 have sent to you with a 
letter — he will tell you all the news. Well, the Chief 
Justice stayed, but they said he was to leave yesterday. 
I had intended to go down, and see and warn him! 
But the President's house had come up in the mean- 
while, and I let them go to their doom, which I 
am only anxious to see swiftly and (if it may be) blood- 
lessly fall. 

Thus I have in a way withdrawn my unrewarded 

7» 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1 89 1 loyalty. Lloyd is down to-day with Moors to call on 
^^P^' Mataafa ; the news of the excursion made a considerable 
row in Apia, and both the German and the English con- 
suls besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his 
purpose, and with my approval. It's a poor thing if 
people are to give up a pleasure party for a malo that 
has never done anything for us but draw taxes, and is 
going to go pop, and leave us at the mercy of the iden- 
tical Mataafa, whom I have not visited for more than a 
year, and who is probably furious. 

The sense of my helplessness here has been rather 
bitter; I feel it wretched to see this dance of folly and 
injustice and unconscious rapacity go forward from day 
to day, and to be impotent. I was not consulted — or 
only by one man, and that on particular points; I did 
not choose to volunteer advice till some pressing occa- 
sion ; I have not even a vote, for I am not a member of 
the municipality. 

What ails you, miserable man, to talk of saving 
material .? I have a whole world in my head, a whole 
new society to work, but I am in no hurry ; you will 
shortly make the acquaintance of the Island of Ulufanua, 
on which I mean to lay several stories ; the Bloody Wed- 
ding, possibly the High Woods — (Oh, it's so good, 
the High Woods, but the story is craziness; that's the 
trouble,) — a political story, the Labour Slave, etc. 
Ulufanua is an imaginary island; the name is a beautiful 
Samoan word for the top of a forest; ulu — leaves or 
hair, fanua = land. The ground or country of the 
leaves. '' Ulufanua the isle of the sea," read that verse 
dactylically and you get the beat; the u's are like our 
double oo\ did ever you hear a prettier word } 

72 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

I do not feel inclined to make a volume of Essays/ 1891 
but if I did, and perhaps the idea is good— and any ^^P** 
idea is better than South Seas — here would be my 
choice of the Scribner articles: Dreams, Beggars, Lan- 
tern-Bearers, Random Memories. There was a paper 
called the Old Pacific Capital in Fraser, in Tulloch's 
time, which had merit; there were two on Fontaine- 
bleau in the Magazine of Art in Henley's time. I have 
no idea if they're any good; then there's the Emigrant 
Train. Pulvis et Umbra is in a different key, and 
wouldn't hang on with the rest. 

I have just interrupted my letter and read through 
the chapter of the High Woods that is written, a chap- 
ter and a bit, some sixteen pages, really very fetching, 
but what do you wish } the story is so wilful, so steep, 
so silly — it's a hallucination I have outlived, and yet 
I never did a better piece of work, horrid, and pleasing, 
and extraordinarily true\\i's, sixteen pages of the South 
Seas ; their essence. What am I to do } Lose this lit- 
tle gem — for I'll be bold, and that's what I think it — 
or go on with the rest, which I don't believe in, and 
don't like, and which can never make aught but a silly 
yarn } Make another end to it } Ah, yes, but that's 
not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I never 
use an effect when I can help it, unless it prepares the 
effects that are to follow ; that's what a story consists 
in. To make another end, that is to make the begin- 
ning all wrong. The denouement of a long story is 
nothing; it is just a "full close," which you may ap- 
proach and accompany as you please — it is a coda, not 

1 In reply to a suggestion which ultimately took effect in the shape 
of the volume called Across the Plains (Chatto and Windus, 1892). 

73 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 an essential member in the rhythm; but the body and 
P^' end of a short story is bone of the bone and blood of 
the blood of the beginning. Well, I shall end by finish- 
ing it against my judgment; that fragment is my Deli- 
lah. Golly, it's good. I am not shining by modesty ; 
but I do just love the colour and movement of that 
piece so far as it goes. 

I was surprised to hear of your fishing. And you 
saw the '* Pharos, "^ thrice fortunate man; I wish I 
dared go home, I would ask the Commissioners to take 
me round for old sake's sake, and see all my family 
pictures once more from the Mull of Galloway to Unst. 
However, all is arranged for our meeting in Ceylon, ex- 
cept the date and the blooming pounds. I have heard 
of an exquisite hotel in the country, airy, large rooms, 
good cookery, not dear; we shall have a couple of 
months there, if we can make it out, and converse or — 
as my grandfather always said — ' * commune. " ' ' Com- 
munings with Mr. Kennedy as to Lighthouse Repairs." 
He was a fine old fellow, but a droll. 

Evening. 
Lloyd has returned. Peace and war were played be- 
fore his eyes at heads or tails. A German was stopped 
with levelled guns; he raised his whip; had it fallen, 
we might have been now in war. Excuses were made 
by Mataafa himself. Doubtless the thing was done — 
I mean the stopping of the German — a little to show 
off before Lloyd. Meanwhile was up here, tell- 

1 The steam-yacht of the Commissioners of Northern Lights, on 
which he had been accustomed as a lad to accompany his father on 
the official trips of inspection round the coast. 

74 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

ing how the Chief Justice was really gone for five 1891 
or eight weeks, and begging me to write to the Times P** 
and denounce the state of affairs ; many strong reasons 
he advanced ; and Lloyd and I have been since his arri- 
val and 's departure, near half an hour, debating 

what should be done. Cedarcrantz is gone; it is not 
my fault; he knows my views on that point — alone 
of all points; — he leaves me with my mouth sealed. 
Yet this is a nice thing that because he is guilty of a 
fresh offence — his flight — the mouth of the only pos- 
sible influential witness should be closed! I do not like 
this argument. I look like a cad, if I do in the man's 
absence what I could have done in a more manly man- 
ner in his presence. True ; but why did he go } It is 
his last sin. And I, who like the man extremely — that 
is the word — I love his society — he is intelligent, plea- 
sant, even witty, a gentleman — and you know how 
that attaches — I loathe to seem to play a base part; 
but the poor natives — who are like other folk, false 
enough, lazy enough, not heroes, not saints — ordinary 
men damnably misused — are they to suffer because I 
like Cedarcrantz, and Cedarcrantz has cut his lucky ? 
This is a little tragedy, observe well — a tragedy! I 
may be right, I may be wrong in my judgment, but I 
am in treaty with my honour. I know not how it will 
seem to-morrow. Lloyd thought the barrier of honour 
insurmountable, and it is an ugly obstacle. He (Cedar- 
crantz) will likely meet my wife three days from now, 
may travel back with her, will be charming if he does ; 
suppose this, and suppose him to arrive and find that I 
have sprung a mine — or the nearest approach to it I 
could find — behind his back ? My position is pretty. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

189 1 Yes, I am an aristocrat. I have the old petty, personal 
^^P^' view of honour ? I should blush till I die if I do this ; 
yet it is on the cards that I may do it. So much I have 
written you in bed, as a man writes, or talks, in a bittre 
Wall. Now I shall sleep, and see if I am more clear. 
I will consult the missionaries at least — I place some 
reliance in M. also — or I should if he were not a parti- 
san ; but a partisan he is. There's the pity. To sleep ! 
A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the fed 
brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of poli- 
tics! Tis funny — 'tis sad. Nobody but these cursed 
idiots could have so driven me; I cannot bear idiots. 

My dear Colvin, I must go to sleep; it is long past 
ten — a dreadful hour for me. And here am I lingering 
(so I feel) in the dining-room at the Monument, talking 
to you across the table, both on our feet, and only the 
two stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be 
waked by dear old George — to whom I wish my kind- 
est remembrances — next morning. I look round, and 
there is my blue room, and my long lines of shelves, 
and the door gaping on a moonless night, and no word 
of S. C. but his twa portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my 
dear fellow, and good-night. Queer place the world ! 

Monday. 

No clearness of mind with the morning; I have no 
guess what I should do. Tis easy to say that the pub- 
lic duty should brush aside these little considerations 
of personal dignity ; so it is that politicians begin, and 
in a month you find them rat and flatter and intrigue 
with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that 
a man's first duty is to these little laws ; the big he does 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

not, he never will understand; I may be wrong about 1891 
the Chief Justice and the Baron and the state of Samoa; ^^P** 
I cannot be wrong about the vile attitude I put myself 
in if I blow the gaff on Cedarcrantz behind his back, 

Tuesday. 
One more word about the South Seas, in answer to a 
question I observe I have forgotten to answer. The 
Tahiti part has never turned up, because it has never 
been written. As for telling you where 1 went or 
when, or anything about Honolulu, I would rather die; 
that is fair and plain. How can anybody care when or 
how I left Honolulu } A man of upwards of forty can- 
not waste his time in communicating matter of that in- 
difference. The letters, it appears, are tedious; they 
would be more tedious still if I wasted my time upon 
such infantile and sucking-bottle details. If ever I put 
in any such detail, it is because it leads into something 
or serves as a transition. To tell it for its own sake, 
never! The mistake is all through that I have told too 
much ; I had not sufficient confidence in the reader, and 
have overfed him; and here are you anxious to learn 
how I — O Colvin! Suppose it had made a book, all 
such information is given to one glance of an eye by a 
map with a little dotted line upon it. But let us forget 
this unfortunate affair. 

Wednesday. 

Yesterday 1 went down to consult Clarke, who took 
the view of delay. Has he changed his mind already } 
I wonder: here at least is the news. Some little while 
back some men of Manono — what is Manono .^ — a 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 Samoan rotten borough, a small isle of huge political 
Sept. importance, heaven knows why, where a handful of 
chiefs make half the trouble in the country. Some men 
of Manono (which is strong Mataafa) burned down the 
houses and destroyed the crops of some Malietoa neigh- 
bors. The President went there the other day and 
landed alone on the island, which (to give him his due) 
was plucky. Moreover, he succeeded in persuading the 
folks to come up and be judged on a particular day in 
Apia. That day they did not come; but did come the 
next, and to their vast surprise, were given six months' 
imprisonment and clapped in gaol. Those who had 
accompanied them, cried to them on the streets as they 
were marched to prison, " Shall we rescue you ? " The 
condemned, marching in the hands of thirty men with 
loaded rifles, cried out *'No!" And the trick was 
done. But it was ardently believed a rescue would be 
attempted; the gaol was laid about with armed men 
day and night; but there was some question of their 
loyalty, and the commandant of the forces, a very nice 
young beardless Swede, became nervous, and conceived 
a plan. How if he should put dynamite under the 
gaol, and in case of an attempted rescue blow up prison 
and all ? He went to the President, who agreed ; he 
went to the American man-of-war for the dynamite and 
machine, was refused, and got it at last from the 
Wreckers. The thing began to leak out, and there 
arose a muttering in town. People had no fancy for 
amateur explosions, for one thing. For another, it did 
not clearly appear that it was legal ; the men had been 
condemned to six months' prison, which they were 
peaceably undergoing; they had not been condemned 

78 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

to death. And lastly, it seemed a somewhat advanced 1891 
example of civilisation to set before barbarians. The ^^P*- 
mutter in short became a storm, and yesterday, while I 
was down, a cutter was chartered, and the prisoners 
were suddenly banished to the Tokelaus. Who has 
changed the sentence ? We are going to stir in the dy- 
namite matter; we do not want the natives to fancy us 
consenting to such an outrage. ^ 

Fanny has returned from her trip, and on the whole 
looks better. The Htgb Woods are under way, and 
their name is now the Beach of Falesd, and the yarn is 
cured. I have about thirty pages of it done ; it will be 
fifty to seventy I suppose. No supernatural trick at all ; 
and escaped out of it quite easily; can't think why I 
was so stupid for so long. Mighty glad to have Fanny 
back to this '' Hell of the South Seas," as the German 
Captain called it. What will Cedarcrantz think when 
he comes back .? To do him justice, had he been here, 
this Manono hash would not have been. 

Here is a pretty thing. When Fanny was in Fiji all 
the Samao and Toeklau folks were agog about our 
** flash" house; but the whites had never heard of it. 

Robert Louis Stevenson, 
Author of The Beach of Falesd, 

1 More about this affair is to be found in the writer's letters of the 
same date to the Times, and in his Footnote to History, p. 297. 



79 



XI 



Sept. 28. 

1 891 My dear Colvin, — Since I last laid down my pen, I 
have written and rewritten The Beach of Falesd; some- 
thing like sixty thousand words of sterling domestic 
fiction (the story, you will understand, is only half that 
length) ; and now 1 don't want to write any more again 
for ever, or feel so; and I've got to overhaul it once 
again to my sorrow. I was all yesterday revising, and 
found a lot of slacknesses and (what is worse in this 
kind of thing) some literaryisms. One of the puzzles is 
this: It is a first person story — a trader telling his own 
adventure in an island. When I began I allowed my- 
self a few liberties, because I was afraid of the end ; now 
the end proved quite easy, and could be done in the 
pace; so the beginning remains about a quarter tone 
out (in places) ; but I have rather decided to let it stay 
so. The problem is always delicate; it is the only 
thing that worries me in first person tales, which other- 
wise (quo' Alan) *'set better wi' my genius." There 
is a vast deal of fact in the story, and some pretty good 
comedy. It is the first realistic South Sea story ; I mean 
with real South Sea character and details of life. Every- 
body else who has tried, that I have seen, got carried 
away by the romance, and ended in a kind of sugar- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

candy sham epic, and the whole effect was lost — there 1891 
was no etching, no human grin, consequently no con- ^^P** 
viction. Now I have got the smell and look of the 
thing a good deal. You will know more about the 
South Seas after you have read my little tale than if you 
had read a library. As to whether any one else will 
read it, I have no guess. I am in an off time, but there 
is just the possibility it might make a hit; for the yarn 
is good and melodramatic, and there is quite a love 
affair — for me; and Mr. Wiltshire (the narrator) is a 
huge lark, though I say it. But there is always the ex- 
otic question, and everything, the life, the place, the 
dialects — trader's talk, which is a strange conglomerate 
of literary expressions and English and American slang, 
and Beach de Mar, or native English, — the very trades 
and hopes and fears of the characters, are all novel, 
and may be found unwelcome to that great, hulking, 
bullering whale, the public. 

Since I wrote, I have been likewise drawing up a 
document to send it to the President; it has been dread- 
fully delayed, not by me, but to-day they swear it will 
be sent in. A list of questions about the dynamite re- 
port are herein laid before him, and considerations sug- 
gested why he should answer. 

October ^th. 
Ever since my last snatch I have been much chivied Oct. 
about over the President business ; his answer has come, 
and is an evasion accompanied with schoolboy inso- 
lence, and we are going to try to answer it. I drew my 
answer and took it down yesterday; but one of the 
signatories wants another paragraph added, which I 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 have not yet been able to draw, and as to the wisdom 
' of which I am not yet convinced. 

Next dajy, Oct. 'jth, the right day. 

We are all in rather a muddled state with our Presi- 
dent affair. I do loathe politics, but at the same time, 
I cannot stand by and have the natives blown in the air 
treacherously with dynamite. They are still quiet; how 
long this may continue I do not know, though of course 
by mere prescription the Government is strengthened, 
and is probably insured till the next taxes fall due. But 
the unpopularity of the whites is growing. My native 
overseer, the great Henry Simele, announced to-day 
that he was ''weary of whites upon the beach. All 
too proud," said this veracious witness. One of the 
proud ones had threatened yesterday to cut off his head 
with a bush knife! These are ''native outrages;" 
honour bright, and setting theft aside, in which the 
natives are active, this is the main stream of irritation. 
The natives are generally courtly, far from always civil, 
but really gentle, and with a strong sense of honour of 
their own, and certainly quite as much civilised as our 
dynamiting President. 

We shall be delighted to see Kipling. ^ I go to bed 
usually about half-past eight, and my lamp is out be- 
fore ten : I breakfast at six. We may say roughly we 
have no soda water on the island, and just now truth- 
fully no whisky. I have heard the chimes at midnight; 
now no more, I guess. But — Fanny and I, as soon as 

1 Mr. Rudyard Kipling was at this time planning a trip to Samoa, 
but the plan was unfortunately not carried out, and he and Stevenson 
never met. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

we can get coins for it, are coming to Europe, not to 1891 
England : I am thinking of Royat. Bar wars. If not, ^^** 
perhaps the Apennines might give us a mountain refuge 
for two months or three in summer. How is that for 
high ? But the money must be all in hand first. 

October i^th. 

How am I to describe my life these last few days ? I 
have been wholly swallowed up in politics, a wretched 
business, with fine elements of farce in it too, which re- 
pay a man in passing, involving many dark and many 
moonlight rides, secret councils which are at once di- 
vulged, sealed letters which are read aloud in confidence 
to the neighbours, and a mass of fudge and fun, which 
would have driven me crazy ten years ago, and now 
makes me smile. 

On Friday, Henry came and told us he must leave 
and go to " my poor old family in Savaii;" why ? I do 
not quite know — but I suspect to be tattooed — if so, 
then probably to be married, and we shall see him no 
more. I told him he must do what he thought his 
duty; we had him to lunch, drank his health, and he 
and I rode down about twelve. When I got down, I 
sent my horse back to help bring down the family later. 
My own afternoon was cut out for me; my last draft for 
the President had been objected to by some of the sig- 
natories. I stood out, and one of our small number ac- 
cordingly refused to sign. Him I had to go and per- 
suade, which went off very well after the first hottish 
moments; you have no idea how stolid my temper is 
now. By about five the thing was done; and we sat 
down to dinner at the Chinaman's — the Verrey or 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 Doyen's of Apia — G. and I at each end as hosts; G.'s 
^' wife — Fanua, late maid of the village; her (adopted) 
father and mother, Seumanu and Faatulia, Fanny, Belle, 
Lloyd, Austin, and Henry Simele, his last appearance. 
Henry was in a kilt of gray shawl, with a blue jacket, 
white shirt and black necktie, and looked like a dark 
genteel guest in a Highland shooting-box. Seumanu 
(opposite Fanny, next G.) is chief of Apia, a rather big 
gun in this place, looking like a large, fatted, military 
Englishman, bar the colour. Faatulia, next me, is a 
bigger chief than her husband. Henry is a chief too — 
his chief name, liga (Ee-eeng-a), he has not yet ''taken" 
because of his youth. We were in fine society, and 
had a pleasant meal-time, with lots of fun. Then to 
the Opera — I beg your pardon, I mean the Circus. 
We occupied the first row in the reserved seats, and 
there in the row behind were all our friends — Cap- 
tain Foss and his Captain-Lieutenant, three of the Amer- 
ican officers, very nice fellows, the Dr., etc., so we 
made a fine show of what an embittered correspondent 
of the local paper called ''the shoddy aristocracy of 
Apia;" and you should have seen how we carried on, 
and how I clapped, and Captain Foss hollered ''wun- 
derschon! '' and threw himself forward in his seat, 
and how we all in fact enjoyed ourselves like school- 
children, Austin not a shade more than his neighbours. 
Then the Circus broke up, and the party went home, 
but I stayed down, having business on the morrow. 

Yesterday, October 12th, great news reaches me, and 
Lloyd and I, with the mail just coming in, must leave 
all, saddle, and ride down. True enough, the President 
had resigned ! Sought to resign his presidency of the 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

council, and keep his advisership to the King; given 
way to the consuls' objections and resigned all — then 
fell out with them about the disposition of the funds, 
and was now trying to resign from his resignation! 
Sad little President, so trim to look at, and I believe so 
kind to his little wife! Not only so, but I meet D. on 
the beach. D. calls me in consultation, and we make 
with infinite difficulty a draft of a petition to the King. 
. . . Then to dinner at M.'s, a very merry meal, inter- 
rupted before it was over by the arrival of the com- 
mittee. Slight sketch of procedure agreed upon, self- 
appointed spokesman, and the deputation sets ofiF. 
Walk all through Matafele, all along Mulinuu, come to 
the King's house; he has verbally refused to see us in 
answer to our letter, swearing he is gase-gase (chief- 
sickness, not common man's), and indeed we see him 
inside in bed. It is a miserable low house, better houses 
by the dozen in the little hamlet (Tanugamanono) of 
bushmen on our way to Vailima; and the President's 
house in process of erection just opposite! We are told 
to return to-morrow; I refuse; and at last we are very 
sourly received, sit on the mats, and I open out, through 
a very poor interpreter, and sometimes hampered by 
unacceptable counsels from my backers. I can speak 
fairly well in a plain way now. C. asked me to write 
out my harangue for him this morning; I have done so, 
and couldn't get it near as good. I suppose (talking and 
interpreting) I was twenty minutes or half-an-hour on 
the deck; then his majesty replied in the dying whisper 
of a big chief; a few words of rejoinder (approving), and 
the deputation withdrew, rather well satisfied. 

A few days ago this intervention would have been a 



1891 
Oct. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 deportable offence; not now, I bet; I would like them 
^^^' to try. A little way back along Mulinuu, Mrs. G. met 
us with her husband's horse; and he and she and 
Lloyd and I rode back in a heavenly moonlight. Here 
ends a chapter in the life of an island politician ! Catch 
me at it again ; 'tis easy to go in, but it is not a pleasant 
trade. I have had a good team, as good as I could get 
on the beach ; but what trouble even so, and what fresh 
troubles shaping. But I have on the whole carried all 
my points ; I believe all but one, and on that (which did 
not concern me) I had no right to interfere. I am sure 
you would be amazed if you knew what a good hand 
I am at keeping my temper, talking people over, and 
giving reasons which are not my reasons, but calculated 
for the meridian of the particular objection; so soon 
does falsehood await the politician in his whirling path. 



86 



XII 



Monday, October 24th. 

My dear Carthew,^ — See what I have written, but 1891 
it's Colvin I'm after — I have written two chapters, ^^^' 
about thirty pages of Wrecker since the mail left, which 
must be my excuse, and the bother I've had with it is 
not to be imagined; you might have seen me the day 
before yesterday weighing British sov.'s and Chili dol- 
lars to arrange my treasure chest. And there was such 
a calculation, not for that only, but for the ship's posi- 
tion and distances when — but I am not going to tell 
you the yarn — and then, as my arithmetic is particu- 
larly lax, Lloyd had to go over all my calculations; and 
then, as I had changed the amount of money, he had to 
go over all his as to the amount of the lay ; and alto- 
gether, a bank could be run with less effusion of figures 
than it took to shore up a single chapter of a measly 
yarn. However, it's done, and I have but one more, 
or at the outside, two to do, and I am Free ! and can do 
any damn thing I like. 

Before falling on politics, I shall give you my day. 
Awoke somewhere about the first peep of day, came 
gradually to, and had a turn on the verandah before 

1 Readers of the IVrecher will not need to be reminded that this is 
the name of the personage on whom the mystery in that story hinges. 

87 



Oct. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 5.55, when *'the child " (an enormous Wallis Islander) 
brings me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; 
which lasts till, at 10.30, Austin comes for his history 
lecture ; this is rather dispiriting, but education must be 
gone about in faith — and charity, both of which pretty 
nigh failed me to-day about (of all things) Carthage; 1 1, 
luncheon ; after luncheon in my mother's room, I read 
Chapter XXIII. of The Wrecker, then Belle, Lloyd, and 
I go up and make music furiously till about 2 (1 sup- 
pose), when I turn into work again till 4; fool from 4 to 
half-past, tired out and waiting for the bath hour; 4.30, 
bath; 4.40, eat two heavenly mangoes on the verandah, 
and see the boys arrive with the pack-horses; 5, dinner; 
smoke, chat on verandah, then hand of cards, and at 
last at eight come up to my room with a pint of beer 
and a hard biscuit, which I am now consuming, and as 
soon as they are consumed I shall turn in. 

Such are the innocent days of this ancient and out- 
worn sportsman ; to-day there was no weeding, usual- 
ly there is however, edged in somewhere. My books 
for the moment are a crib to Phaedo, and the second 
book of Montaigne; and a little while back I was reading 
Frederic Harrison, ** Choice of Books," etc. — very good 
indeed, a great deal of sense and knowledge in the 
volume, and some very true stuff, contra Carlyle, about 
the eighteenth century. A hideous idea came over me 
that perhaps Harrison is now getting old. Perhaps you 
are. Perhaps I am. Oh, this infidelity must be stared 
firmly down. I am about twenty-three — say twenty- 
eight; you about thirty, or, by 'r lady, thirty-four; and 
as Harrison belongs to the same generation, there is no 
good bothering about him. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Here has just been a fine alert; I gave my wife a dose 1891 
of chlorodyne. " Something wrong," says she. ''Non- ^^*' 
sense, " said I. ' ' Embrocation, " said she. I smelt it, and 
— it smelt very funny. ''I think it's just gone bad, 
and to-morrow will tell. Proved to be so. 

IVednesday. 

History of Tuesday. — Woke at usual time, very little 
work, for I was tired, and had a job for the evening — 
to write parts for a new instrument, a violin. Lunch, 
chat, and up to my place to practise; but there was no 
practising for me — my flageolet was gone wrong, and 
I had to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up 
again. As this is a most intricate job — the thing dis- 
solves into seventeen separate members, most of these 
have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine as 
needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs 
shoving different ways — it took me till two. Then 
Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands; first to Motootua, 
where we had a really instructive conversation on 
weeds and grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we 
bought a fresh bottle of chlorodyne and conversed on 
politics. 

My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a 
particularly nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only 
consented to because I had held the reins so tight over 
my little band before, has raised a deuce of a row- — new 
proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet 
without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an ap- 
proved interpreter — read (1 suppose) spy. Then back ; I 
should have said I was trying the new horse ; a tallish pie- 
bald, bought from the circus ; he proved steady and safe, 

^9 



Ibpl 
Oct. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

but in very bad condition, and not so much the wild Arab 
steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height 
of his back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and 
I had a great consciousness of exercise and florid action, 
as I posted to his long, emphatic trot. We had to ride 
back easy; even so he was hot and blown; and when 
we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character 
for sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner; 
and in the evening our violinist arrived, a young lady, 
no great virtuoso truly, but plucky, industrious, and a 
good reader; and we played five pieces with huge 
amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I 
have read a splendid piece of Montaigne, written this 
page of letter, and now turn to the Wrecker. 

Wednesday — November i6th or 17th — and I am 
ashamed to say mail day. The Wrecker is finished, 
that is the best of my news ; it goes by this mail to 
Scribner's ; and I honestly think it a good yarn on the 
whole and of its measly kind. The part that is genuinely 
good is Nares, the American sailor; that is a genuine 
figure ; had there been more Nares it would have been a 
better book ; but of course it didn't set up to be a book, 
only a long tough yarn with some pictures of the man- 
ners of to-day in the greater world — not the shoddy 
sham world of cities, clubs, and colleges, but the world 
where men still live a man's life. The worst of my 
news is the influenza; Apia is devastate; the shops 
closed, a ball put off, etc. As yet we have not had it 
at Vailima, and who knows .? we may escape. None 
of us go down, but of course the boys come and go. 

Your letter had the most wonderful '' I told you so " 
I ever heard in the course of my life. Why, you mad- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

man, I wouldn't change my present installation for any 1891 
post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to me. ^^^' 
It fills the bill; I have the loveliest time. And as for 
wars and rumours of war, you surely know enough of 
me to be aware that I like that also a thousand times 
better than decrepit peace in Middlesex ? I do not quite 
like politics ; I am too aristocratic, 1 fear, for that. God 
knows 1 don't care who I chum with; perhaps like 
sailors best; but to go round and sue and sneak to keep 
a crowd together — never. My imagination, which is 
not the least damped by the idea of having my head cut 
off in the bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like 
Gladstone's, and the shadow of the newspaper chills 
me to the bone. Hence my late eruption was interest- 
ing, but not what I like. All else suits me in this 
(killed a mosquito) Ai abode. 

About politics. A determination was come to by the 
President that he had been an idiot; emissaries came to 
G. and me to kiss and be friends. My man proposed I 
should have a personal interview ; I said it was quite 
useless, I had nothing to say; I had offered him the 
chance to inform me, had pressed it on him, and had 
been very unpleasantly received, and now '' Time was." 
Then it was decided that 1 was to be made a culprit 
against Germany; the German Captain — a delightful 
fellow and our constant visitor — wrote to say that as- 
*'a German officer" he could not come even to say 
farewell. We all wrote back in the most friendly spirit, 
telling him (politely) that some of these days he would 
be sorry, and we should be delighted to see our friend 
again. Since then I have seen no German shadow. 

Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1 89 1 did this act, and then resigned. By singular good for- 
^^^' tune, Mataafa has not yet moved; no thanks to our 
idiot governors. They have shot their bolt; they have 
made a rebel of the only man {to their own knowledge^ 
on the report of their own spy) who held the rebel party 
in check; and having thus called on war to fall, they can 
do no more, sit equally *'expertes" of x^^ and counsel, 
regarding their handiwork. It is always a cry with 
these folk that he (Mataafa) had no ammunition. I 
always said it would be found ; and we know of five 
boat-loads that have found their way to Malie already. 
Where there are traders, there will be ammunition; 
aphorism by R. L. S. 
Now what am I to do next } 

Lives of the Stevensons } Historia Samoce ? A History 
for Children ? Fiction ? I have had two hard months 
at fiction ; I want a change. Stevensons } I am expect- 
ing some more material; perhaps better wait. Samoa; 
rather tempting; might be useful to the islands — and 
to me; for it will be written in admirable temper; I 
have never agreed with any party, and see merits and 
excuses in all ; should do it (if I did) very slackly and 
easily, as if half in conversation. History for Children ? 
This flows from my lessons to Austin ; no book is any 
good. The best I have seen is Freeman's Old English 
History ; but his style is so rasping, and a child can 
learn more, if he's clever. I found my sketch of general 
Aryan History, given in conversation, to have been prac- 
tically correct — at least what 1 mean is, Freeman had 
very much the same stuff in his early chapters, only not 
so much, and I thought not so well placed; and the 
child remembered some of it. Now the difficulty is to 

92 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

give this general idea of main place, growth, and move- 1891 
ment; it is needful to tack it on a yarn. Nov^ Scotch ^'^*- 
is the only History I know; it is the only history reaso- 
nably represented in my library ; it is a very good one 
for my purpose, owing to two civilisations having been 
face to face throughout — or rather Roman civilisation 
face to face with our ancient barbaric life and govern- 
ment, down to yesterday, to 1750 anyway. But the 
Tales of a Grandfather stand in my way ; I am teach- 
ing them to Austin now, and they have all Scott's 
defects and all Scott's hopeless merit. I cannot com- 
pete with that; and yet, so far as regards teaching 
History, how he has missed his chances! I think I'll 
try; I really have some historic sense, I feel that in my 
bones. Then there's another thing. Scott never knew 
the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has 
missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our 
savages, and, besides, his style is not very perspicuous 
to childhood. Gad, I think I'll have a flutter. Buridan's 
Ass ! Whether to go, what to attack. Must go to other 
letters; shall add to this, if I have time. 



93 



XIII 



Nov. 2'^th, 1 89 1. 



1 89 1 My dear Colvin, my dear Colvin, — I wonder how 
often I'm going to write it. In spite of the loss of three 
days, as I have to tell, and a lot of weeding and cacao 
planting, I have finished since the mail left four chapters, 
forty-eight pages of my Samoa history. It is true that 
the first three had been a good deal drafted two years 
ago, but they had all to be written and re-written, and 
the fourth chapter is all new. Chapter I. Elements of 
Discord — Native. II. Elements of Discord — Foreign. 
III. The Success of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. Will 
probably be called "The Rise of Mataafa." VI. Furor 
Consularis — a devil of a long chapter, VII. Stuebel 
the Pacificator. Vlll. Government under the Treaty of 
Berlin. IX. Practical Suggestions. Say three-sixths of 
it are done, maybe more; by this mail five chapters 
should go, and that should be a good half of it; say 
sixty pages. And if you consider that I sent by last mail 
the end of the Wrecker, coming on for seventy or eighty 
pages, and the mail before that the entire Tale of the 
Beach of Falesd, I do not think I can be accused of 
idleness. This is my season; I often work six and 
seven, and sometimes eight hours ; and the same day I 
am perhaps weeding or planting for an hour or two 

94 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

more — and I dare say you know what hard work 1891 
weeding is — and it all agrees with me at this time of ^°^* 
the year — like — like idleness, if a man of my years 
could be idle. 

My first visit to Apia was a shock to me ; every sec- 
ond person the ghost of himself, and the place reeking 
with infection. But I have not got the thing yet, and 
hope to escape. This shows how much stronger I am ; 
think of me flitting through a town of influenza patients 
seemingly unscathed. We are all on the cacao planting. 

The next day my wife and I rode over to the German 
plantation, Vailele, whose manager is almost the only 
German left to speak to us. Seventy labourers down 
with influenza ! It is a lovely ride, half-way down our 
mountain towards Apia, then turn to the right, ford the 
river, and three miles of solitary grass and cocoa palms, 
to where the sea beats and the wild wind blows un- 
ceasingly about the plantation house. On the way 
down Fanny said, *'Now what would you do if you 
saw Colvin coming up }" 

Next day we rode down to Apia to make calls. 

Yesterday the mail came, and the fat was in the fire. 

Nov. 29th? 

Book.'^ All right. I must say I like your order. And 
the papers are some of them up to dick, and no mistake. 
I agree with you the lights seem a little turned down. 
The truth is, I was far through (if you understand 

1 Across the Plains. The papers specially referred to in the next 
lines are those written at Saranac Lake in the winter of 1887-8, includ- 
ing A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Pulvis et Umbra, A Christmas 
Sermon. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1891 Scots), and came none too soon to the South Seas, 
^°^* where I was to recover peace of body and mind. No 
man but myself knew all my bitterness in those days. 
Remember that, the next time you think I regret my 
exile. And however low the lights are, the stuff is 
true, and I believe the more effective; after all, what I 
wish to fight is the best fought by a rather cheerless 
presentation of the truth. The world must return some 
day to the word duty, and be done with the word re- 
ward. There are no rewards, and plenty duties. And 
the sooner a man sees that and acts upon it like a gen- 
tleman or a fine old barbarian, the better for himself. 

There is my usual puzzle about publishers. Chatto 
ought to have it, as he has all the other essays ; these 
all belong to me, and Chatto publishes on terms. Long- 
man has forgotten the terms we are on; let him look 
up our first correspondence, and he will see 1 reserved 
explicitly, as was my habit, the right to republish as I 
choose. Had the same arrangement with Henley, Mag- 
azine of Art, and with Tulloch, Fraser's. — For any nec- 
essary note or preface, it would be a real service if you 
would undertake the duty yourself. I should love a 
preface by you, as short or as long as you choose, three 
sentences, thirty pages, the thing 1 should like is your 
name. And the excuse of my great distance seems suf- 
ficient. I shall return with this the sheets corrected as 
far as I have them ; the rest I will leave, if you will, to 
you entirely; let it be your book, and disclaim what 
you dislike in the preface. You can say it was at my 
eager prayer. 1 should say I am the less willing to pass 
Chatto over, because he behaved the other day in a 
very handsome manner. He asked leave to reprint 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Damien; I gave it to him as a present, explaining I could 1891 
receive no emolument for a personal attack. And he 
took out my share of profits, and sent them in my name 
to the Leper Fund. 1 could not bear after that to take 
from him any of that class of books which I have always 
given him. Tell him the same terms will do, Clark to 
print, uniform with the others. 

I have lost all the days since this letter began re- 
handling Chapter IV. of the Samoa racket. I do not go 
in for literature; address myself to sensible people 
rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of 
journalism, I have no right to dally ; if it is to help, it 
must come soon. In two months from now it shall be 
done, and should be published in the course of March. 
I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it '*A 
Footnote to History : Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa," 
I believe. I recoil from serious names; they seem so 
much too pretentious for a pamphlet. It will be about 
the size of Treasure Island, I believe. Of course, as 
you now know, my case of conscience cleared itself off, 
and I began my intervention directly to one of the 
parties. The other, the Chief Justice, I am to inform of 
my book the first occasion. God knows if the book 
will do any good — or harm ; but I judge it right to try. 
There is one man's life certainly involved; and it may 
be all our lives. I must not stand and slouch, but do my 
best as best I can. But you may conceive the difficulty 
of a history extending to the present week, at least, and 
where almost all the actors upon all sides are of my per- 
sonal acquaintance. The only way is to judge slowly, 
and write boldly, and leave the issue to fate. ... I 
am far indeed from wishing to confine myself to creative 

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1 89 1 work ; that is a loss, the other repairs ; the one chance for 
^°^* a man, and, above all, for one who grows elderly, ahem, 
is to vary drainage and repair. That is the one thing I 
understand — the cultivation of the shallow solum of my 
brain. But I would rather, from soon on, be released 
from the obligation to write. In five or six years this 
plantation — suppose it and us still to exist — should 
pretty well support us and pay wages; not before, and 
already the six years seem long to me. If literature were 
but a pastime! 

I have interrupted myself to write the necessary noti- 
fication to the Chief Justice. 

I see in looking up Longman's letter that it was as 
usual the letter of an obliging gentleman; so do not 
trouble him with my reminder. I wish all my publish- 
ers were not so nice. And I have a fourth and a fifth 
baying at my heels ; but for these, of course, they must 
go wanting. 

Dec. 2nd. 

No answer from the Chief Justice, which is like him, 
but surely very wrong in such a case. The lunch bell ! 
I have been off work, playing patience and weeding all 
morning. Yesterday and the day before I drafted 
eleven and revised nine pages of Chapter V., and the 
truth is, I was extinct by lunch-time, and played patience 
sourly the rest of the day. To-morrow or next day I 
hope to go in again and win. Lunch 2nd BelL 

Dec. 2nd, afternoon. 

Dec. I have kept up the idleness ; blew on the pipe to Belle's 
piano ; then had a ride in the forest all by my nainsel ; 

98 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

back and piped again, and now dinner nearing. Take 
up this sheet with nothing to say. The weird figure of 
Faauma is in the room washing my windows, in a black 
lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging from 
round her neck between her breasts ; not another stitch ; 
her hair close cropped and oiled; when she first came 
here she was an angelic little stripling, but she is now 
in full flower — or half-flower — and grows buxom. 
As 1 write, I hear her wet cloth moving and grunting 
with some industry ; for I had a word this day with her 
husband on the matter of work and meal-time, when 
she is always late. And she has a vague reverence for 
Papa, as she and her enormous husband address me 
when anything is wrong. Her husband is Lafaele, 
sometimes called the archangel, of whom I have writ 
you often. Rest of our household, Talolo, cook; Pulu, 
kitchen boy, good, steady, industrious lads; Henry, 
back again from Savaii, where his love affair seems not 
to have prospered, with what looks like a spear-wound 
in the back of his head, of which Mr. Reticence says 
nothing ; Simi, Manuele, and two other labourers out- 
doors. Lafaele is provost of the live-stock, whereof 
now, three milk-cows, one bull-calf, one heifer. Jack, 
Macfarlane, the mare, Harold, Tifaga Jack, Donald and 
Edinburgh — seven horses — O, and the stallion — eight 
horses; five cattle; total, if my arithmetic be correct, 
thirteen head of beasts; I don't know how the pigs 
stand, or the ducks, or the chickens; but we get a good 
many eggs, and now and again a duckling or a chick- 
ling for the table; the pigs are more solemn, and appear 
only on birthdays and sich. 

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1891 
Dec. 



Dec. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Monday, Dec. 7. 

1891 On Friday morning about eleven 1500 cacao seeds 
arrived, and we set to and toiled from twelve that day 
to six, and went to bed pretty tired. Next day I got 
about an hour and a half at my History, and was at it 
again by 8. 10, and except an hour for lunch kept at it 
till four p. M. Yesterday, 1 did some History in the 
morning, and slept most of the afternoon ; and to-day, 
being still averse from physical labour, and the mail 
drawing nigh, drew out of the squad, and finished for 
press the fifth chapter of my History ; fifty-nine pages 
in one month; which (you will allow me to say) is a 
devil of a large order; it means at least 177 pages of 
writing; 89,000 words! and hours going to and fro 
among my notes. However, this is the way it has 
to be done; the job must be done fast, or it is of no 
use. And it is a curious yarn. Honestly, I think people 
should be amused and convinced, if they could be at 
the pains to look at such a damned outlandish piece of 
machinery, which of course they won't. And much I 
care. 

When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull 
mulish way, perhaps the slowest worker there, surely 
the most particular, and the only one that never looked 
up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have 
been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary 
men. Here is how to learn to write, might be the motto. 
You should have seen us ; the verandah was like an Irish 
bog; our hands and faces were bedaubed with soil; and 
Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note 
when she remarked {a propos of nothing), ''Too much 
eleele (soil) for me! " The cacao (you must understand) 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

has to be planted at first in baskets of plaited cocoa-leaf. 1891 
From four to ten natives were plaiting these in the wood- ^^'^• 
shed. Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it 
by the boxful to the verandah. Lloyd and I and Belle, 
and sometimes S. (who came to bear a hand), were fill- 
ing the baskets, removing stones and lumps of clay; 
Austin and Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who 
planted a seed in each, and then set them, packed close, 
in the corners of the verandah. From twelve on Friday 
till five p. M. on Saturday we planted the first 1 500, and 
more than 700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how 
filthy we were, and we were all properly tired. They 
are all at it again to-day, bar Belle and me, not required, 
and glad to be out of it. The Chief Justice has not yet 
replied, and I have news that he received my letter. 
What a man! 

I have gone crazy over Bourget's Sensations d 'Italia ; 
hence the enclosed dedication,^ a mere cry of gratitude 
for the best fun I've had over a new book this ever so ! 

1 For the volume Across the Plains. 



lOI 



XIV 



Tuesday, Dec, 1891. 

1891 Sir, — I have the honour to report further explorations 
^^^* of the course of the river Vaea, with accompanying 
sketch plan. The party under my command consisted 
of one horse, and was extremely insubordinate and 
mutinous, owing to not being used to go into the bush, 
and being half-broken anyway — and that the wrong 
half. The route indicated for my party was up the bed 
of the so-called river Vaea, which I accordingly fol- 
lowed to a distance of perhaps two or three furlongs 
eastward from the house of Vailima, where, the stream 
being quite dry, the bush thick, and the ground very 
difficult, I decided to leave the main body of the force 
under my command tied to a tree, and push on myself 
with the point of the advance guard, consisting of one 
man. The valley had become very narrow and airless ; 
foliage close shut above; dry bed of the stream much 
excavated, so that I passed under fallen trees without 
stooping. Suddenly it turned sharply to the north, at 
right angles to its former direction ; I heard living water, 
and came in view of a tall face of rock and the stream 
spraying down it; it might have been climbed, but it 
would have been dangerous, and I had to make my 
way up the steep earth banks, where there is nowhere 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

any footing for man, only for trees, which made the 
rounds of my ladder. I was near the top of this climb, 
which was very hot and steep, and the pulses were 
buzzing all over my body, when I made sure there was 
one external sound in my ears, and paused to listen. 
No mistake; a sound of a mill-wheel thundering, I 
thought, close by, yet below me, a huge mill-wheel, 



1891 

Dec. 




yet not going steadily, but with a schottische move- 
ment, and at each fresh impetus shaking the mountain. 
There, where I was, I just put down the sound to the 
mystery of the bush ; where no sound now surprises 
me — and any sound alarms ; I only thought it would 
give Jack a fine fright, down where he stood tied to a 
tree by himself, and he was badly enough scared when 
I left him. The good folks at home identified it; it was 
a sharp earthquake. 

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Dec 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

189 1 At the top of the climb I made my way again to the 
water-course; it is here running steady and pretty full; 
strange these intermittencies — and just a little below 
the main stream is quite dry, and all the original brook 
has gone down some lava gallery of the mountain — 
and just a little further below, it begins picking up from 
the left hand in little boggy tributaries, and in the in- 
side of a hundred yards has grown a brook again.^ The 
general course of the brook was, I guess, S. E. ; the 
valley still very deep and whelmed in wood. It seemed 
a swindle to have made so sheer a climb and still find 
yourself at the bottom of a well. But gradually the 
thing seemed to shallow, the trees to seem poorer and 
smaller; I could see more and more of the silver sprin- 
kles of sky among the foliage, instead of the sombre 
piling up of tree behind tree. And here I had two 
scares — first, away up on my right hand I heard a bull 
low ; I think it was a bull from the quality of the low, 
which was singularly songful and beautiful; the bulls 
belong to me, but how did I know that the bull was 

1 As to this peculiar intermittency of the Samoan streams, full in 
their upper course, but below in many places dry or lost, compare the 
late Lord Pembroke's South Sea Buhhl&s, p. 212: — " One odd thing 
connected with these ravines is the fact that the higher you go the 
more water you find. Unlike the Thames, which begins, I believe, in 
half a mile of dusty lane, and expands in its brimming breadth as it 
approaches the sea, a Samoan stream begins in bubbling plenty and 
ends in utter drought a mile or two from the salt water. Gradually, 
as you ascend you become more and more hopeful; moist patches of 
sand appear here and there, then tiny pools that a fallen leaf might 
cover, then larger ones with little thread-like runs of water between 
them: larger and larger, till at last you reach some hard ledge of trap, 
over which a glorious stream gurgles and splashes into a pool ample 
enough for the bath of an elephant." 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

aware of that ? and my advance guard not being at all 
properly armed, we advanced with great precaution 
until I was satisfied that I was passing eastward of the 
enemy. It was during this period that a pool of the 
river suddenly boiled up in my face in a little fountain. 
It was in a very dreary, marshy part among dilapidated 
trees that you see through holes in the trunks of; and 
if any kind of beast or elf or devil had come out of that 
sudden silver ebullition, I declare I do not think I should 
have been surprised. It was perhaps a thing as curious 

— a fish, with which these head waters of the stream are 
alive. They are some of them as long as my finger, 
should be easily caught in these shallows, and some 
day I'll have a dish of them. 

Very soon after I came to where the stream collects 
in another banana swamp, with the bananas bearing 
well. Beyond, the course is again quite dry ; it mounts 
with a sharp turn a very steep face of the mountain, 
and then stops abruptly at the lip of a plateau, I suppose 
the top of Vaea mountain ; plainly no more springs here 

— there was no smallest furrow of a water-course be- 
yond — and my task might be said to be accomplished. 
But such is the animated spirit in the service that the 
whole advance guard expressed a sentiment of disap- 
pointment that an exploration, so far successfully con- 
ducted, should come to a stop in the most promising 
view of fresh successes. And though unprovided either 
with compass or cutlass, it was determined to push 
some way along the plateau, marking our direction by 
the laborious process of bending down, sitting upon, 
and thus breaking the wild cocoanut trees. This was 
the less regretted by all from a delightful discovery 

105 



1891 

Dec. 



i«9i 
Dec. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

made of a huge banyan growing here in the bush, with 
flying-buttressed flying buttresses, and huge arcs of 
trunk hanging high overhead and trailing down new 
complications of root. I climbed some way up what 
seemed the original beginning. It was easier to climb 
than a ship's rigging, even rattled; everywhere there 
was foot-hold and hand-hold. It was judged wise to 
return and rally the main body, who had now been left 
alone for perhaps forty minutes in the bush. 

The return was effected in good order, but unhappily 
I only arrived (like so many other explorers) to find my 
main body or rear-guard in a condition of mutiny; the 
work, it is to be supposed, of terror. It is right I should 
tell you the Vaea has a bad name, an aitu fafine — female 
devil of the woods — succubus — haunting it, and 
doubtless Jack had heard of her; perhaps, during my 
absence, saw her ; lucky Jack ! Anyway, he was neither 
to hold nor to bind, and finally, after nearly smashing 
me by accident, and from mere scare and insubordina- 
tion several times, deliberately set in to kill me; but 
poor Jack ! the tree he selected for that purpose was a 
banana! I jumped off and gave him the heavy end of 
my whip over the buttocks ! Then I took and talked 
in his ear in various voices ; you should have heard my 
alto — it was a dreadful, devilish note — I knew Jack 
knew it was an aitu. Then I mounted him again, and 
he carried me fairly steadily. He'll learn yet. He has 
to learn to trust absolutely to his rider; till he does, the 
risk is always great in thick bush, where a fellow must 
try different passages, and put back and forward, and 
pick his way by hair's-breadths. 

The expedition returned to Vailima in time to re- 

io6 



Dec. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

ceive the visit of the R. C. Bishop. He is a superior 1891 
man, much above the average of priests. 

Thursday. 
Yesterday the same expedition set forth to the south- 
ward by what is known as Carruthers' Road. At a 
fallen tree which completely blocks the way, the main 
body was as before left behind, and the advance guard 
of one now proceeded with the exploration. At the 
great tree known as Mepi Tree, after Maben the sur- 
veyor, the expedition struck forty yards due west till it 
struck the top of a steep bank which it descended. The 
whole bottom of the ravine is filled with sharp lava 
blocks quite unrolled and very difficult and dangerous 
to walk among; no water in the course, scarce any 
sign of water. And yet surely water must have made 
this bold cutting in the plateau. And if so, why is the 
lava sharp ? My science gave out; but I could not but 
think it ominous and volcanic. The course of the 
stream was tortuous, but with a resultant direction a 
little by west of north ; the sides the whole way ex- 
ceeding steep, the expedition buried under fathoms of 
foliage. Presently water appeared in the bottom, a 
good quantity ; perhaps thirty or forty cubic feet, with 
pools and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the 
banks here must be very fond of water; its roots lie 
close-packed down the stream, like hanks of guts, so 
as to make often a corrugated walk, each root ending 
in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice 
there came in small tributaries from the left or western 
side — the whole plateau having a smartish inclination 
to the east; one of the tributaries in a handsome little 

107 



Dec. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

web of silver hanging in the forest. Twice I was 
startled by birds; one that barked like a dog; another 
that whistled loud ploughman's signals, so that I vow I 
was thrilled, and thought I had fallen among runaway 
blacks, and regretted my cutlass which I had lost and 
left behind while taking bearings. A good many fishes 
in the brook, and many cray-fish ; one of the last with 
a queer glow-worm head. Like all our brooks; the 
water is pure as air, and runs over red stones like rubies. 
The foliage along both banks very thick and high, the 
place close, the walking exceedingly laborious. By the 
time the expedition reached the fork, it was felt exceed- 
ingly questionable whether the morale of the force were 
sufficiently good to undertake more extended operations. 
A halt was called, the men refreshed with water and a 
bath, and it was decided at a drum-head council of 
war to continue the descent of the Embassy Water 
straight for Vailima, whither the expedition returned, 
in rather poor condition, and wet to the waist, about 
4 p. M. 

Thus in two days the two main water-courses of this 
country have been pretty thoroughly explored, and I 
conceive my instructions fully carried out. The main 
body of the second expedition was brought back by 
another officer despatched for that purpose from Vailima. 
Casualties: one horse wounded; one man bruised; no 
deaths — as yet, but the bruised man feels to-day as if 
his case was mighty serious. 

Dec. 25, '91. 
Your note with a very despicable bulletin of health 
arrived only yesterday, the mail being a day behind. 

108 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



1801 



It contained also the excellent Times article, which was 
a sight for sore eyes. I am still taboo; the blessed ^^" 
Germans will have none of me; and I only hope they 
may enjoy the Times article. 'Tis my revenge ! I wish 
you had sent the letter too, as I have no copy, and do 
not even know what I wrote the last day, with a bad 
headache, and the mail going out. However, it must 
have been about right, for the Times article was in the 
spirit I wished to arouse. I hope we can get rid of the 
man before it is too late. He has set the natives to 
war; but the natives, by God's blessing, do not want 
to fight, and I think it will fizzle out — no thanks to 
the man who tried to start it. But I did not mean to 
drift into these politics ; rather to tell you what I have 
done since I last wrote. 

Well, I worked away at my History for a while, and 
only got one chapter done; no doubt this spate of work 
is pretty low now, and will be soon dry; but, God bless 
you, what a lot I have accomplished; Wrecker done. 
Beach of Falesd done, half the History : c'est etonnant. 
(1 hear from Burlingame, by the way, that he likes the 
end of the Wrecker ; 'tis certainly a violent, dark yarn 
with interesting, plain turns of human nature), then 
Lloyd and I went down to live in Haggard's rooms, 
where Fanny presently joined us. Haggard's rooms 
are in a strange old building — old for Samoa, and has 
the effect of the antique like some strange monastery ; 
I would tell you more of it, but 1 think I'm going to use 
it in a tale. The annexe close by had its door sealed ; 
poor Dowdney lost at sea in a schooner. The place is 
haunted. The vast empty sheds, the empty store, the 
airless, hot, long, low rooms, the claps of wind that set 

109 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

i8qi everything flying — a strange uncanny house to spend 
Dec. Christmas in. 

Jan. ist, '92, 

1892 For a day or two I have sat close and wrought hard 
■^^"* at the History^ and two more chapters are all but done. 
About thirty pages should go by this mail, which is 
not what it should be, but all I could overtake. Will 
any one ever read it.^ I fancy not; people don't read 
history for reading, but for education and display — and 
who desires education in the history of Samoa, with 
no population, no past, no future, or the exploits of 
Mataafa, Malietoa, and Consul Knappe? Colkitto and 
Galasp are a trifle to it. Well, it can't be helped, and 
it must be done, and better or worse, it's capital fun. 
There are two to whom I have not been kind — Ger- 
man Consul Becker and English Captain Hand, R. N. 

On Dec. 30th I rode down with Belle to go to (if you 
please) the Fancy Ball. When I got to the beach, I 
found the barometer was below 29°, the wind still in 
the east and steady, but a huge offensive continent of 
clouds and vapours forming to leeward. It might be a 
hurricane; I dared not risk getting caught away from 
my work, and leaving Belle, returned at once to Vaili- 
ma. Next day — yesterday — it was a tearer; we had 
storm shutters up; I sat in my room and wrote by 
lamplight — ten pages, if you please, seven of them 
draft, and some of these compiled from as many as 
seven different and conflicting authorities, so that was 
a brave day's work. About two a huge tree fell with- 
in sixty paces of our house; a little after, a second 
went ; and we sent out boys with axes and cut down 

no 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

a third, which was too near the house, and buckling 1892 
like a fishing rod. At dinner we had the front door ^^"' 
closed and shuttered, the back door open, the lamp lit. 
The boys in the cook-house were all out at the cook- 
house door, where we could see them looking in and 
smiling. Lauilo and Faauma waited on us with smiles. 
The excitement was delightful. Some very violent 
squalls came as we sat there, and every one rejoiced; 
it was impossible to help it; a soul of putty had to sing. 
All night it blew; the roof was continually sounding 
under missiles; in the morning the verandahs were half 
full of branches torn from the forest. There was a last 
very wild squall about six ; the rain, like a thick white 
smoke, flying past the house in volleys, and as swift, 
it seemed, as rifle balls ; all with a strange, strident hiss, 
such as I have only heard before at sea, and, indeed, 
thought to be a marine phenomenon. Since then the 
wind has been falling with a few squalls, mostly rain. 
But our road is impassable for horses; we hear a 
schooner has been wrecked and some native houses 
blown down in Apia, where Belle is still and must re- 
main a prisoner. Lucky I returned while I could ! But 
the great good is this ; much bread-fruit and bananas 
have been destroyed ; if this be general through the isl- 
ands, famine will be imminent; and whoever blows the 
coals, there can be no war. Do I then prefer a famine 
to a war ? you ask. Not always, but just now. I am 
sure the natives do not want a war; I am sure a war 
would benefit no one but the white officials, and I be- 
lieve we can easily meet the famine — or at least that it 
can be met. That would give our officials a legitimate 
opportunity to cover their past errors. 

Ill 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Jan. 2nd. 

1892 I woke this morning to find the blow quite ended. 

•'^"" The heaven was all a mottled gray; even the east quite 
colourless; the downward slope of the island veiled in 
wafts of vapour, blue like smoke ; not a leaf stirred on 
the tallest tree; only, three miles away below me on 
the barrier reef, I could see the individual breakers curl 
and fall, and hear their conjunct roaring rise, as it still 
rises at i p. m., like the roar of a thoroughfare close by. 
I did a good morning's work, correcting and clarifying 
my draft, and have now finished for press eight chapters, 
ninety-one pages, of this piece of journalism. Four 
more chapters, say fifty pages, remain to be done; I 
should gain my wager and finish this volume in three 
months, that is to say, the end should leave me per 
February mail; I cannot receive it back till the mail of 
April. Yes, it can be out in time ; pray God that it be 
in time to help. 

How do journalists fetch up their drivel .? I aim only 
at clearness and the most obvious finish, positively at no 
higher degree of merit, not even at brevity — I am sure 
it could have been all done, with double the time, in 
two-thirds of the space. And yet it has taken me two 
months to write 45,500 words; and be damned to my 
wicked prowess, I am proud of the exploit ! The real 
journalist must be a man not of brass only, but bronze. 
Chapter IX. gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, 
and go on chattering to you. This last part will be 
much less offensive (strange to say) to the Germans. 
It is Becker they will never forgive me for; Knappe I 
pity and do not dislike; Becker I scorn and abominate. 
Here is the tableau, i. Elements of Discord : Native. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

II. Elements of Discord : Foreign, iii. The Sorrows of 1892 
Laupepa. iv. Brandeis. v. The Battle of Matautu. ■^^"• 
VI. Last Exploits of Becker, vii. The Samoan Camps. 
VIII. Affairs of Lautii and Fangalii. ix. ''Furor Consu- 
laris." X. The Hurricane, xi. Stuebel Recluse, xii. 
The Present Government. I estimate the whole roughly 
at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever dream of read- 
ing it, it would be found amusing. -^^§-2-= 23^ printed 
pages; a respectable little five-bob volume, to bloom 
unread in shop windows. After that, I'll have a spank 
at fiction. And rest ? I shall rest in the grave, or when 
I come to Italy. If only the public will continue to sup- 
port me ! I lost my chance not dying ; there seems bloom- 
ing little fear of it now. I worked close on five hours 
this morning; the day before, close on nine; and unless 
I finish myself off with this letter, I'll have another hour 
and a half, or aiblins fwa, before dinner. Poor man, 
how you must envy me, as you hear of these orgies of 
work, and you scarce able for a letter. But Lord, Colvin, 
how lucky the situations are not reversed, for I have no 
situation, nor am fit for any. Life is a steigh brae. 
Here, have at Knappe, and no more clavers ! 

There was never any man had so many irons in the 
fire, except Jim Pinkerton.^ I forgot to mention I have 
the most gallant suggestion from Lang, with an offer of 
MS. authorities, which turns my brain. It's all about the 
throne of Poland and buried treasure in the Mackay 
country, and Alan Breck can figure there in glory. 

1 In the IVrecker. As to the story thus suggested by Mr. Andrew 
Lang, see below, pp. 245, 246, 272-76. 

«i3 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 Yesterday, J. and I set off to Blacklock's (American 
^^"' Consul), who lives not far from that little village I have 
so often mentioned as lying between us and Apia. I 
had some questions to ask him for my History; thence 
we must proceed to Vailele, where I had also to cross- 
examine the plantation manager about the battle there. 
We went by a track I had never before followed down 
the hill to Vaisigano, which flows here in a deep valley, 
and was unusually full, so that the horses trembled in 
the ford. The whole bottom of the valley is full of va- 
rious streams posting between strips of forest with a 
brave sound of waters. In one place we had a glimpse 
of a fall some way higher up, and then sparkling in sun- 
light in the midst of the green valley. Then up by a 
winding path scarce accessible to a horse for steepness, 
to the other side, and the open cocoanut glades of the 
plantation. Here we rode fast, did a mighty satisfac- 
tory afternoon's work at the plantation house, and still 
faster back. On the return Jack fell with me, but got up 
again ; when I felt him recovering I gave him his head, 
and he shoved his foot through the rein ; I got him by 
the bit however, and all was well ; he had mud over all 
his face, but his knees were not broken. We were 
scarce home when the rain began again ; that was luck. 
It is pouring now in torrents ; we are in the height of 
the bad season. Lloyd leaves along with this letter on 
a change to San Francisco ; he had much need of it, but 
I think this will brace him up. I am, as you see, a tower 
of strength. I can remember riding not so far and not 
near so fast when I first came to Samoa, and being 
shattered next day with fatigue ; now I could not tell I 
have done anything; have re-handled my battle of Fan- 

114 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

galii according to yesterday's information — four pages 1892 
rewritten; and written already some half-dozen pages J^"* 
of letters. 

I observe with disgust that while of yore, when I own 
I was guilty, you never spared me abuse, but now, 
when I am so virtuous, where is the praise ? Do admit 
that I have become an excellent letter-writer — at least 
to you, and that your ingratitude is imbecile. — Yours 
ever, 

R. L. S. 



XV 



Jan. ^\st, '92, 

1892 My dear Colvin, — No letter at all from you, and this 
•^^"* scratch from me ! Here is a year that opens ill. Lloyd 
is off to "the coast" sick — the coast means California 
over most of the Pacific — I have been down all month 
with influenza, and am just recovering — I am overlaid 
with proofs, which 1 am just about half fit to attend to. 
One of my horses died this morning, and another is now 
dying on the front lawn — Lloyd's horse and Fanny's. 
Such is my quarrel with destiny. But I am mending 
famously, come and go on the balcony, have perfectly 
good nights, and though I still cough, have no oppres- 
sion and no hemorrhage and no fever. So if I can find 
time and courage to add no more, you will know my 
news is not altogether of the worst ; a year or two ago, 
and what a state I should have been in now ! Your si- 
lence, I own, rather alarms me. But I tell myself you 
have just miscarried ; had you been too ill to write, some 
one would have written me. Understand, I send this 
brief scratch not because I am unfit to write more, but 
because I have 58 galleys of the IVrecker siud 102 of the 
Beach of Falesd to get overhauled somehow or other in 
time for the mail, and for three weeks 1 have not 
touched a pen with my finger. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Feb. 1st. 

The second horse is still alive, but I still think dying. 1892 



The first was buried this morning. My proofs are 
done ; it was a rough two days of it, but done. Con- 
summatum est ; na uma. I believe the Wrecker ends 
well ; if 1 know what a good yarn is, the last four chap- 
ters make a good yarn — but pretty horrible. The 
Beach of Falesd I still think well of, but it seems it's 
immoral and there's a to-do, and financially it may 
prove a heavy disappointment. The plaintive request 
sent to me, to make the young folks married properly 
before '' that night," I refused ; you will see what would 
be left of the yarn, had I consented.^ This is a poison 
bad world for the romancer, this Anglo-Saxon world; 
I usually get out of it by not having any women in it at 
all ; but when I remember I had the Treasure of Fran- 
chard refused as unfit for a family magazine, I feel de- 
spair weigh upon my wrists. 

As I know you are always interested in novels, I 
must tell you that a new one is now entirely planned. 
It is to be called Sophia Scarlet, and is in two parts. 
Part I. The Vanilla Planter. Part II. The Overseers. 
No chapters, I think; just two dense blocks of narra- 
tive, the first of which is purely sentimental, but the 
second has some rows and quarrels, and winds up with 
an explosion, if you please! I am just burning to get 
at Sophia, but I must do this Samoan journalism — that's 
a cursed duty. The first part of Sophia, bar the first 
twenty or thirty pages, writes itself; the second is more 

1 Editors and publishers had been inclined to shy at the terms of the 
fraudulent marriage contract, which is the pivot of the whole story; 
see below, Letter xviii. 

117 



Feb. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 difficult, involving a good many characters — about ten, 
^^^' I think — who have to be kept all moving, and give the 
effect of a society. I have three women to handle, out 
and well-away! but only Sophia is in full tone. Sophia 
and two men, Windermere, the Vanilla Planter, who 
dies at the end of Part I., and Rainsforth, who only ap- 
pears in the beginning of Part II. The fact is, I blush 
to own it, but Sophia is a regular novel ; heroine and 
hero, and false accusation, and love, and marriage, and 
all the rest of it — all planted in a big South Sea planta- 
tion run by ex-English officers — a la Stewart's planta- 
tion in Tahiti. 1 There is a strong undercurrent of la- 
bour trade, which gives it a kind of Uncle Tom flavour, 
ahsit omen! The first start is hard ; it is hard to avoid 
a little tedium here, but I think by beginning with the 
arrival of the three Miss Scarlets hot from school and 
society in England, I may manage to slide in the in- 
formation. The problem is exactly a Balzac one, and I 
wish 1 had his fist — for I have already a better method 
— the kinetic, whereas he continually allowed himself 
to be led into the static. But then he had the fist, and 
the most I can hope is to get out of it with a modicum 
of grace and energy, but for sure without the strong im- 
pression, the full, dark brush. Three people have had 
it, the real creator's brush : Scott, see much of The Anti- 
quary and The Heart of Midlothian (especially all 
round the trial, before, during, and after) — Balzac — 
and Thackeray in Vanity Fair, Everybody else either 
paints thin, or has to stop to paint, or paints excitedly, 

1 For a lively account of this plantation and its history, see South 
Sea Bubbles, chap. i. 

118 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

SO that you see the author skipping before his canvas. 1892 

Here is a long way from poor Sophia Scarlet ! ^^^' 

This day is published 

Sophia Scarlet 

By 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 



119 



XVI 



Feb., 1892. 

1892 My dear Colvin, — This has been a busyish month 
^^^' for a sick man. First, Faauma — the bronze candle- 
stick, whom otherwise I called my butler — bolted from 
the bed and bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel Hercules, 
prefect of the cattle. There was the deuce to pay, and 
Hercules was inconsolable, and immediately started out 
after a new wife, and has had one up on a visit, but 
says she has ''no conversation;" and I think he will 
take back the erring and possibly repentant candlestick ; 
whom we all devoutly prefer, as she is not only highly 
decorative, but good-natured, and if she does little 
work makes no rows. I tell this lightly, but it really 
was a heavy business; many were accused of com- 
plicity, and Rafael was really very sorry. I had to 
hold beds of justice — literally — seated in my bed and 
surrounded by lying Samoans seated on the floor; and 
there were many picturesque and still inexplicable pas- 
sages. It is hard to reach the truth in these islands. 

The next incident overlapped with this. S. and 
Fanny found three strange horses in the paddock: for 
long now the boys have been forbidden to leave their 
horses here one hour because our grass is overgrazed. 
S. came up with the news, and I saw I must now strike 



Feb. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

a blow. *'To the pound with the lot," said I. He 1892 
proposed taking the three himself, but 1 thought that 
too dangerous an experiment, said 1 should go too, and 
hurried into my boots so as to show decision taken, in 
the necessary interviews. They came of course — the 
interviews — and I explained what I was going to do at 
huge length, and stuck to my guns. I am glad to say 
the natives — with their usual (purely speculative) sense 
of justice highly approved the step after reflection. 
Meanwhile off went S. and I with the three corpora 
delicti ; and a good job I went! Once, when our circus 
began to kick, we thought all was up; but we got 
them down all sound in wind and limb. 1 judged I 
was much fallen off from my Elliott forefathers, who 
managed this class of business with neatness and des- 
patch. Half-way down it came on to rain tropic style, 
and I came back from my outing drenched like a 
drowned man — I was literally blinded as I came back 
among these sheets of water; and the consequence was 
I was laid down with diarrhoea and threatenings of 
Samoa colic for the inside of another week. 

I have a confession to make. When I was sick I tried 
to get to work to finish that Samoa thing, wouldn't go ; 
and at last, in the colic time, I slid off into David Bal- 
four} some 50 pages of which are drafted, and like me 
well. Really I think it is spirited ; and there's a heroine 
that (up to now) seems to have attractions: absitomeni 
David, on the whole, seems excellent. Alan does not 
come in till the tenth chapter, and 1 am only at the 
eighth, so 1 don't know if I can find him again; but 

1 The sequel to Kidnapped, published in the following year under 
the title Catriona. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 David is on his feet, and doing well, and very much 
^^^' in love, and mixed up with the Lord Advocate and the 
(untitled) Lord Lovat, and all manner of great folk. 
And the tale interferes with my eating and sleeping. 
The join is bad; I have not thought to strain too 
much for continuity; so this part be alive, I shall be 
content. But there's no doubt David seems to have 
changed his style, de'il ha'e him ! And much I care, if 
the tale travel! 

Frida)>, Feb. ? ? igtb? 
Two incidents to-day which I must narrate. After 
lunch, it was raining pitilessly ; we were sitting in my 
mother's bedroom, and I was reading aloud Kinglake's 
Charge of the Light Brigade and we had just been all 
seized by the horses aligning with Lord George Paget, 
when a figure appeared on the verandah ; a little, slim, 
small figure of a lad, with blonde {i. e. limed) hair, a 
propitiatory smile, and a nose that alone of all his fea- 
tures grew pale with anxiety. "I come here stop," 
was about the outside of his English ; and I began at 
once to guess that he was a runaway labourer,^ and 
that the bush-knife in his hand was stolen. It proved 
he had a mate, who had lacked his courage, and was 
hidden down the road; they had both made up their 
minds to run away, and had '*come here stop." I 
could not turn out the poor rogues, one of whom 
showed me marks on his back, into the drenching 
forest; I could not reason with them, for they had not 
enough English, and not one of our boys spoke their 

1 Most of the work on the plantations in Samoa is done by " black 
boys," i. e., imported labourers from other (Melanesian) islands. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

tongue ; so I bade them feed and sleep here to-night, and 1892 
to-morrow I must do what the Lord shall bid me. 

Near dinner-time, I was told that a friend of Lafaele's 
had found human remains in my bush. After dinner, 
a figure was seen skulking across towards the water- 
fall, which produced from the verandah a shout, in my 
most stentorian tones: "O at le ingoa?" literally 
**Who the name.^" which serves here for ''What's 
your business.^" as well. It proved to be Lafaele's 
friend; I bade a kitchen boy, Lauilo, go with him to 
see the spot, for though it had ceased raining, the whole 
island ran and dripped. Lauilo was willing enough, 
but the friend of the archangel demurred; he had too 
much business; he had no time. ''All right," I said, 
"you too much frightened, I go along," which of course 
produced the usual shout of delight from all those who 
did not require to go. I got into my Saranac snow 
boots; Lauilo got a cutlass; Mary Carter, our Sydney 
maid, joined the party for a lark, and off we set. I tell 
you our guide kept us moving; for the dusk fell swift. 
Our woods have an infamous reputation at the best, 
and our errand (to say the least of it) was grisly. At 
last they found the remains; they were old, which was 
all I cared to be sure of; it seemed a strangely small 
"pickle-banes" to stand for a big, flourishing, buck- 
islander, and their situation in the darkening and drip- 
ping bush was melancholy. All at once, I found there 
was a second skull, with a bullet-hole 1 could have 
stuck my two thumbs in — say anybody else's one 
thumb. My Samoans said it could not be, there were 
not enough bones; I put the two pieces of skull to- 
gether, and at last convinced them. Whereupon, in a 

123 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 flash, they found the not unromantic explanation. This 
poor brave had succeeded in the height of a Samoan 
warrior's ambition ; he had taken a head, which he was 
never destined to show to his applauding camp. 
Wounded himself, he had crept here into the bush to 
die with his useless trophy by his side. His date would 
be about fifteen years ago, in the great battle between 
Laupepa and Talavou, which took place on My Land, 
Sir. To-morrow we shall bury the bones and fire a 
salute in honour of unfortunate courage. 

Do you think I have an empty life ? or that a man 
jogging to his club has so much to interest and amuse 
him ? — touch and try him too, but that goes along with 
the others; no pain, no pleasure, is the iron law. So 
here I stop again, and leave, as I left yesterday, my 
political business untouched. And lo ! here comes my 
pupil, I believe, so I stop in time. 

March 2nd. 
Nov. Since I last wrote, fifteen chapters of David Balfour 
have been drafted, and five tiris au clair, I think it 
pretty good; there's a blooming maiden that costs anx- 
iety — she is as virginal as billy; but David seems there 
and alive, and the Lord Advocate is good, and so I 
think is an episodic appearance of the Master of Lovat. 
In Chapter xvii. I shall get David abroad — Alan went 
already in Chapter xii. The book should be about the 
length of Kidnapped; this early part of it, about D.'s 
evidence in the Appin case, is more of a story than any- 
thing in Kidnapped, but there is no doubt there comes 
a break in the middle, and the tale is practically in two 
divisions. In the first James More and the M'Gregors, 

124 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

and Catriona, only show; in the second, the Appin case 1892 
being disposed of, and James Stewart hung, they rule ^^^' 
the roast and usurp the interest — should there be any 
left. Why did I take up David Balfour? I don't 
know. A sudden passion. 

Monday, I went down in the rain with a colic to take 
the chair at a public meeting; dined with Haggard; 
sailed off to my meeting, and fought with wild beasts 
for three anxious hours. All was lost that any sensible 
man cared for, but the meeting did not break up — 
thanks a good deal to R. L. S. — and the man who op- 
posed my election, and with whom I was all the time 
wrangling, proposed the vote of thanks to me with a 
certain handsomeness ; I assure you I had earned it. . . . 
Haggard and the great Abdul, his high-caste Indian ser- 
vant, imported by my wife, were sitting up for me 
with supper, and I suppose it was twelve before I got 
to bed. Tuesday raining, my mother rode down, and 
we went to the Consulate to sign a Factory and Com- 
mission. Thence, I to the lawyers, to the printing 
office, and to the Mission. It was dinner-time when I 
returned home. 

This morning, our cook-boy having suddenly left — 
injured feelings — the archangel was to cook breakfast. 
I found him lighting the fire before dawn; his eyes 
blazed, he had no word of any language left to use, and 
I saw in him (to my wonder) the strongest workings 
of gratified ambition. Napoleon was no more pleased 
to sign his first treaty with Austria than was Lafaele to 
cook that breakfast. All morning, when I had hoped to be 
at this letter, I slept like one drugged, and you must take 
this (which is all I can give you) for what it is worth — 

125 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 D. B. 

Mar. 

Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad. 
The Second Part ; wherein are set forth the misfortunes 
in which he was involved upon the Appin Murder; his 
troubles with Lord Advocate Prestongrange ; captivity 
on the Bass Rock ; journey into France and Holland; 
and singular relations with fames More Drummond or 
Macgregor, a son of the notorious Rob Roy. 

Chapters i. A Beggar on Horseback. 11. The High- 
land Writer, iii. I go to Pilrig. iv. Lord Advocate 
Prestongrange. v. Butter and Thunder, vi. I make a 
fault in honour, vii. The Bravo, viii. The Heather on 
Fire. ix. I begin to be haunted with a red-headed 
man. x. The Wood by Silvermills. xi. On the march 
again with Alan. xii. Gillane Sands, xiii. The Bass 
Rock. XIV. Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik. xv. I 
go to Inverary. 

That is it, as far as drafted. Chapters iv. v. vii. ix. 
and XIV. I am specially pleased with ; the last being an 
episodical bogie story about the Bass Rock told there by 
the Keeper. 



126 



XVII 



March ^th. 

My dear S. C, — Take it not amiss if this is a wretch- 1892 
ed letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day 
this week I have had some business impediment — I am 
even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road 
— and my precious morning was shattered by a polite 
old scourge oisifaipule — parliament man — come beg- 
ging. All the time David Balfour is skelping along. I 
began at the 13th of last month; I have now 12 chap- 
ters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and 
by the time the month is out, one-half should be com- 
pleted, and I'll be back at drafting the second half. 
What makes me sick is to think of Scott turning out 
Guy Mannering in three weeks! What a pull of work: 
heavens, what thews and sinews ! And here am I, my 
head spinning from having only re-written seven not 
very difficult pages — and not very good when done. 
Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself, to 
make such a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an 
old nursery yarn, not worth spitting on when done. 
Still, there is no doubt 1 turn out my work more easily 
than of yore; and I suppose I should be singly glad of 
that. And if I got my book done in six weeks, seeing 
it will be about half as long as a Scott, and I have to 
write everything twice, it would be about the same rate 

127 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 of industry. It is my fair intention to be done with it 

^^^' in three months, which would make me about one-half 

the man Sir Walter was for application and driving the 

dull pen. Of the merit we shall not talk; but I don't 

think Davie is without merit. 

March 12th. 

And I have this day triumphantly finished 15 chap- 
ters, 100 pages — being exactly one-half (as near as 
anybody can guess) of David Balfour; the book to be 
about a fifth as long again (altogether) as Treasure 
Island: could I but do the second half in another 
month! But I can't, I fear; I shall have some belated 
material arriving by next mail, and must go again at 
the History. Is it not characteristic of my broken ten- 
acity of mind, that I should have left Davie Balfour some 
five years in the British Linen Company's Office, and 
then follow him at last with such vivacity ? But I 
leave you again; the last (15th) chapter ought to be 
rewrote, or part of it, and I want the half completed 
in the month, and the month is out by midnight; 
though, to be sure, last month was February, and I 
might take grace. These notes are only to show I hold 
you in mind, though I know; they can have no interest 
for man or God or animal. 

I should have told you about the Club. We have 
been asked to try and start a sort of weekly ball for the 
half-castes and natives, ourselves to be the only whites ; 
and we consented, from a very heavy sense of duty, 
and with not much hope. Two nights ago we had 
twenty people up, received them in the front verandah, 
entertained them on cake and lemonade, and I made a 

128 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Speech — embodying our proposals, or conditions, if 1892 
you like — for I suppose thirty minutes. No joke to ^^^* 
speak to such an audience, but it is believed I was 
thoroughly intelligible. I took the plan of saying every- 
thing at least twice in a different form of words, so that 
if the one escaped my hearers, the other might be seized. 
One white man came with his wife, and was kept rigor- 
ously on the front verandah below ! You see what a 
sea of troubles this is like to prove ; but it is the only 
chance — and when it blows up, it must blow up ! I 
have no more hope in anything than a dead frog; I go 
into everything with a composed despair, and don't 
mind — just as I always go to sea with the conviction I 
am to be drowned, and like it before all other pleasures. 
But you should have seen the return voyage, when nine- 
teen horses had to be found in the dark, and nineteen 
bridles, all in a drench of rain, and the club, just consti- 
tuted as such, sailed away in the wet, under a cloudy 
moon like a bad shilling, and to descend a road through 
the forest that was at that moment the image of a respect- 
able mountain brook. My wife, who is president with 
power to expel, had to begin her functions. . . . 

25^^ March. 

Heaven knows what day it is, but I am ashamed, all 
the more as your letter from Bournemouth of all places 
— poor old Bournemouth! — is to hand, and contains a 
statement of pleasure in my letters which I wish I could 
have rewarded with a long one. What has gone on ? 
A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive, 
desultory character; much waste of time, much riding 
to and fro, and little transacted or at least peracted. 

129 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 Let me give you a review of the present state of our 
^^* live stock. — Six boys in the bush; six souls about the 
house. Talolo, the cook, returns again to-day, after 
an absence which has cost me about twelve hours of 
riding, and I suppose eight hours' solemn sitting in 
council. '*! am sorry indeed for the Chief Justice of 
Samoa," I said; '*it is more than I am fit for to be 
Chief Justice of Vailima." — Lauilo is steward. Both 
these are excellent servants ; we gave a luncheon party 
when we buried the Samoan bones, and I assure you 
all was in good style, yet we never interfered. The food 
was good, the wine and dishes went round as by 
mechanism. — Steward's assistant and washman. Ar- 
rick, a New Hebridee black boy, hired from the German 
firm; not so ugly as most, but not pretty neither; not 
so dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton. When 
he came first, he ate so much of our good food that 
he got a prominent belly. Kitchen assistant, Tomas 
(Thomas in English), a Fiji man, very tall and hand- 
some, moving like a marionette with sudden bounds, 
and rolling his eyes with sudden effort. — Washerwoman 
and precentor, Helen, Tomas's wife. This is our weak 
point ; we are ashamed of Helen ; the cook-house blushes 
for her; they murmur there at her presence. She seems 
all right; she is not a bad-looking, strapping wench, 
seems chaste, is industrious, has an excellent taste in 
hymns — you should have heard her read one aloud 
the other day, she marked the rhythm with so much 
gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is wrong, then ? 
says you. Low in your ear — and don't let the papers 
get hold of it — she is of no family. None, they say; 
literally a common woman. Of course, we have out- 

130 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

islanders, who may be villeins; but we give them the 1892 
benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of ^^^' 
Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck 
I have said is our precentor. It is always a woman who 
starts Samoan song; the men who sing second do not 
enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste, 
the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two 
hymns ; but Helen seems to know the whole repertory, 
and the morning prayers go far more lively in conse- 
quence. — Lafaele, provost of the cattle. The cattle are 
Jack, my horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, 
and he is as steady as a doctor's cob ; Tifaga Jack, a cir- 
cus-horse, my mother's piebald, bought from a passing 
circus ; Belle's mare, now in childbed or next door, con- 
found the slut ! Musu — amusingly translated the other 
day '' don't want to," literally cross, but always in the 
sense of stubbornness and resistance — my wife's little 
dark-brown mare, with a white star on her forehead, 
whom I have been riding of late to steady her — she has 
no vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a 
lot of attention and humoring; lastly (of saddle horses) 
Luna — not the Latin moon, the Hawaiian overseer, but 
it's pronounced the same — a pretty little mare too, but 
scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has to be ridden 
with a stock-whip and be brought back with her rump 
criss-crossed like a clan tartan ; the two cart horses, now 
only used with pack saddles; two cows, one in the 
straw (I trust) to-morrow, a third cow, the Jersey — 
whose milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration 
— she gives good exercise to the farming saunterer, and 
refreshes him on his return with cream ; two calves, a 
bull, and a cow; God knows how many ducks and 

131 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 chickens, and for a wager not even God knows how 
^^^' many cats; twelve horses, seven horses, five kine: is 
not this Babylon the Great which I have builded ? Call 
it Subpriorsford. 

Two nights ago the club had its first meeting; only 
twelve were present, but it went very well. I was not 
there, I had ridden down the night before after dinner 
on my endless business, took a cup of tea in the Mission 
like an ass, then took a cup of coffee like a fool at Hag- 
gard's, then fell into a discussion with the American 
Consul ... I went to bed at Haggard's, came sud- 
denly broad awake, and lay sleepless the live night. It 
fell chill, I had only a sheet, and had to make a light 
and range the house for a cover — I found one in the 
hall, a mackintosh. So back to my sleepless bed, and 
to lie there till dawn. In the morning I had a longish 
ride to take in a day of a blinding, staggering sun, and 
got home by eleven, our luncheon hour, with my head 
rather swimmy; the only time I h2iYQ feared the sun 
since I was in Samoa. However, I got no harm, but did 
not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played the pipe, and 
read a novel by James Payn — sometimes quite interest- 
ing, and in one place really very funny with the quaint 
humor of the man. Much interested the other day. 
As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan had 
written a word on a board, and there was an v? per- 
fectly formed, but upside down. You never saw such 
a thing in Europe; but it is as common as dirt in Poly- 
nesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm ; it is 
common to fmd a subverted letter tattooed there. Here 
is a tempting problem for psychologists. 
I am now on terms again with the German Consulate, 
132 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

I know not for how long ; not, of course, with the Presi- 
dent, which I find a relief; still, with the Chief Justice 
and the English Consul. For Haggard, I have a genu- 
ine affection ; he is a lovable man. 

Wearyful man ! " Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd, 
not as he told it, but as it was afterwards written.'* i 
These words were left out by some carelessness, and I 
think I have been thrice tackled about them. Grave 
them in your mind and wear them on your forehead. 

The Lang story will have very little about the trea- 
sure; The Master'^ will appear; and it is to a great ex- 
tent a tale of Prince Charlie after the '45, and a love 
story forbye: the hero is a melancholy exile, and mar- 
ries a young woman who interests the prince, and there 
is the devil to pay. I think the Master kills him in a 
duel, but don't know yet, not having yet seen my sec- 
ond heroine. No — the Master doesn't kill him, they 
fight, he is wounded, and the Master plays deus ex ma- 
china, I think just now of calling it The Tail of the 
Race ; no — heavens! I never saw till this moment — 
but of course nobody but myself would ever understand 
Mill-Race, they would think of a quarter-mile. So — I 
am nameless again. My melancholy young man is to 
be quite a Romeo. Yes, I'll name the book from him : 
Dyce of Ythan — pronounce Eethan. 
Dyce of Ythan 
by R. L. S. 

Oh, Shovel — Shovel waits his turn, he and his an- 

1 In answer to the obvious remark that the length and style of the 
Wrecker, then running in Scribner's Magazine, were out of keeping 
with what professed at the outset to be a spoken yarn. 

^ Of Ballantrae. 



1592 
Mar. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 cestors. I would have tackled him before, but my 
^^^' State Trials have never come. So that I have now 
quite planned: — 

DyceofYthan. (Historical, 1750.) 
Sophia Scarlet. (To-day.) 

The Shovels of Newton French. (Historical, 1650 
to 1830.) 
And quite planned and part written : — 

The Pearl Fisher. (To-day.) (With Lloyd, a 

machine.)^ 
David Balfour. (Historical, 175 1.) 
And, by a strange exception for R. L. S., all in the third 
person except D. B. 

I don't know what day this is now (the 29th), but I 
have finished my two chapters, ninth and tenth, of 
Samoa in time for the mail, and feel almost at peace. 
The tenth was the hurricane, a difficult problem ; it so 
tempted one to be literary ; and I feel sure the less of 
that there is in my little handbook, the more chance it 
has of some utility. Then the events are complicated, 
seven ships to tell of, and sometimes three of them to- 
gether; Oh, it was quite a job. But I think I have my 
facts pretty correct, and for once, in my sickening yarn, 
they are handsome facts : creditable to all concerned ; 
not to be written of — and I should think, scarce to be 
read — without a thrill. I doubt I have got no hurri- 
cane into it, the intricacies of the yarn absorbing me too 
much. But there — it's done somehow, and time 
presses hard on my heels. The book, with my best 
expedition, may come just too late to be of use. In 
which case I shall have made a handsome present of 
1 Afterwards changed into The Ebb Tide. 
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VAILIMA LETTERS 

some months of my life for nothing and to nobody. 1892 
Well, through Her the most ancient heavens are fresh ^^^' 
and strong.^ 

After I had written you, I re-read my hurricane, 
which is very poor; the life of the journalist is hard, 
another couple of writings and I could make a good 
thing, I believe, and it must go as it is! But, of course, 
this book is not written for honour and glory, and the 
few who will read it may not know the difference. 
Very little time. I go down with the mail shortly, 
dine at the Chinese restaurant, and go to the club to 
dance with islandresses. Think of my going out once 
a week to dance. 

Politics are on the full job again, and we don't know 
what is to come next. I think the whole treaty raj 
seems quite played out! They have taken to bribing 
the faipule men (parliament men) to stay in Mulinuu, 
we hear ; but I have not yet sifted the rumour. I must 
say I shall be scarce surprised if it prove true ; these ru- 
mours have the knack of being right. — Our weather 
this last month has been tremendously hot, not by the 
thermometer, which sticks at 86*^, but to the sensation : 
no rain, no wind, and this the storm month. It looks 
ominous, and is certainly disagreeable. 

No time to finish, 

Yours ever, 

R. L. S. 

1 Wordsworth, a shade misquoted. 



135 



XVIII 

May \st, 1892. 
jg My dear Colvin, — As I rode down last night about 

May. six, I saw a sight I must try to tell you of. In front of 
me, right over the top of the forest into which I was 
descending was a vast cloud. The front of it accurately 
represented the somewhat rugged, long-nosed, and 
beetle-browed profile of a man, crowned by a huge 
Kalmuck cap ; the flesh part was of a heavenly pink, the 
cap, the moustache, the eyebrows were of a bluish 
gray ; to see this with its childish exactitude of design 
and colour, and hugeness of scale — it covered at least 
25*^ — held me spell-bound. As I continued to gaze, 
the expression began to change ; he had the exact air of 
closing one eye, dropping his jaw, and drawing down 
his nose ; had the thing not been so imposing, I could 
have smiled ; and then almost in a moment, a shoulder 
of leaden-coloured bank drove in front and blotted it. 
My attention spread to the rest of the cloud, and it was 
a thing to worship. It rose from the horizon, and its 
top was within thirty degrees of the zenith ; the lower 
parts were like a glazier in shadow, varying from dark 
indigo to a clouded white in exquisite gradations. 
The sky behind, so far as I could see, was all of a blue 
already enriched and darkened by the night, for the hill 

136 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

had what lingered of the sunset. But the top of my 1892 
Titanic cloud flamed in broad sunlight, with the most ^^^" 
excellent softness and brightness of fire and jewels, en- 
lightening all the world. It must have been far higher 
than Mount Everest, and its glory, as I gazed up at it 
out of the night, was beyond wonder. Close by rode 
the little crescent moon ; and right over its western horn, 
a great planet of about equal lustre with itself. The 
dark woods below were shrill with that noisy business 
of the birds' evening worship. When I returned, after 
eight, the moon was near down; she seemed little 
brighter than before, but now that the cloud no longer 
played its part of a nocturnal sun, we could see that 
sight, so rare with us at home that it was counted a 
portent, so customary in the tropics, of the dark sphere 
with its little gilt band upon the belly. The planet had 
been setting faster, and was now below the crescent. 
They were still of an equal brightness. 

I could not resist trying to reproduce this in words, 
as a specimen of these incredibly beautiful and impos- 
ing meteors of the tropic sky that make so much of 
my pleasure here; though a ship's deck is the place to 
enjoy them. Oh, what awful scenery, from a ship's 
deck, in the tropics ! People talk about the Alps, but the 
clouds of the trade wind are alone for sublimity. 

Now to try and tell you what has been happening. 
The state of these islands, and of Mataafa and Laupepa 
(Malietoa's amho) had been much on my mind. I went 
to the priests and sent a message to Mataafa, at a time 
when it was supposed he was about to act. He did 
not act, delaying in true native style, and I determined 
I should go to visit him. I have been very good not to 

>37 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 go sooner; to live within a few miles of a rebel camp, 
^^^' to be a novelist, to have all my family forcing me to go, 
and to refrain all these months, counts for virtue. But 
hearing that several people had gone and the govern- 
ment done nothing to punish them, and having an er- 
rand there which was enough to justify myself in my 
own eyes, I half determined to go, and spoke of it with 
the half-caste priest. And here (confound it) up came 
Laupepa and his guards to call on me; we kept him to 
lunch, and the old gentleman was very good and ami- 
able. He asked me why I had not been to see him ? I 
reminded him a law had been made, and told him 1 was 
not a small boy to go and ask leave of the consuls, and 
perhaps be refused. He told me to pay no attention to 
the law but come when I would, and begged me to 
name a day to lunch. The next day (1 think it was) 
early in the morning, a man appeared; he had metal 
buttons like a policeman — but he was none of our 
Apia force; he was a rebel policeman, and had been all 
night coming round inland through the forest from 
Malie. He brought a letter addressed 

/ laua susuga To his Excellency 

Mist Mea, Mr. Thingumbob. 

(So as not to compromise me.) I can read Samoan 
now, though not speak it. It was to ask me for last 
Wednesday. My difficulty was great; I had no man 
here who was fit, or who would have cared, to write 
for me; and I had to postpone the visit. So I gave up 
half-a-day with a groan, went down to the priests, ar- 
ranged for Monday week to go to Malie, and named 
Thursday as my day to lunch with Laupepa. I was 
sharply ill on Wednesday, mail day. But on Thursday 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

I had to trail down and go through the dreary business 1892 
of a feast, in the King's wretched shanty, full in view ^^y- 
of the President's fine new house; it made my heart 
burn. 

This gave me my chance to arrange a private inter- 
view with the King, and I decided to ask Mr. Whitmee, 
one of our missionaries, to be my interpreter. On Fri- 
day, being too much exhausted to go down, I begged 
him to come up. He did, 1 told him the heads of what 
I meant to say; and he not only consented, but said, if 
we got on well with the King, he would even proceed 
with me to Malie. Yesterday, in consequence, I rode 
down to W.'s house by eight in the morning; waited 
till ten ; received a message that the King was stopped 
by a meeting with the President and faipule; made an- 
other engagement for seven at night; came up; went 
down; waited till eight, and came away again, 
bredomile, and a dead body. The poor, weak, enslaved 
King had not dared to come to me even in secret. Now 
I have to-day for a rest, and to-morrow to Malie. Shall I 
be suffered to embark? It is very doubtful; they are 
on the trail. On Thursday, a policeman came up to me 
and began that a boy had been to see him, and said I 
was going to see Mataafa. — ''And what did you say ?" 
said 1. — *' I told him I did not know about where you 
were going," said he. — " A very good answer," said I, 
and turned away. It is lashing rain to-day, but to- 
morrow, rain or shine, I must at least make the at- 
tempt; and I am so weary, and the weather looks so 
bad. I could half wish they would arrest me on the 
beach. All this bother and pother to try and bring a little 
chance of peace; all this opposition and obstinacy in 

159 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 people who remain here by the mere forbearance of 
^^y* Mataafa, who has a great force within six miles of their 
government buildings, which are indeed only the resi- 
dences of white officials. To understand how I have 
been occupied, you must know that ''Misi Mea" has 
had another letter, and this time had to answer himself; 
think of doing so in a language so obscure to me, with 
the aid of a Bible, concordance and dictionary ! What 
a wonderful Baboo compilation it must have been! I 
positively expected to hear news of its arrival in Malie 
by the sound of laughter. I doubt if you will be able to 
read this scrawl, but I have managed to scramble some- 
how up to date ; and to-morrow, one way or another, 
should be interesting. But as for me, I am a wreck, 
as I have no doubt style and handwriting both testify. 

8 P.M. 

Wonderfully rested; feel almost fit for to-morrow's 
dreary excursion — not that it will be dreary if the 
weather favour, but otherwise it will be death ; and a 
native feast, and I fear I am in for a big one, is a thing I 
loathe. I wonder if you can really conceive me as a 
politician in this extramundane sphere — presiding at 
public meetings, drafting proclamations, receiving mis- 
addressed letters that have been carried all night through 
tropical forests ? It seems strange indeed, and to you 
who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not 
say I am free from the itch of meddling, but God knows 
this is no tempting job to meddle in ; I smile at pictur- 
esque circumstances like the Misi Mea {Monsieur Chose 
is the exact equivalent) correspondence, but the busi- 
ness as a whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing 

140 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

and say nothing; and then a day comes, and I say 1892 
"this can go on no longer." ^^y- 

9.30 p. M. 
The wretched native dilatoriness finds me out. News 
has just come that we must embark at six to-morrow; 
I have divided the night in watches, and hope to be 
called to-morrow at four and get under way by five. It 
is a great chance if it be managed ; but I have given di- 
rections and lent my own clock to the boys, and hope 
the best. If I get called at four we shall do it nicely. 
Good-night; I must turn in. 

Well, we did get off by about 5.30, or, by'r lady! 
quarter of six : myself on Donald, the huge gray cart- 
horse, with a ship-bag across my saddle bow, Fanny on 
Musu and Belle on Jack. We were all feeling pretty tired 
and sick, and I looked like heaven knows what on the 
cart-horse: ''death on the pale horse," I suggested — 
and young Hunt the missionary, who met me to-day on 
the same charger, squinted up at my perch and remarked, 
"There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft." The 
boat was ready and we set off down the lagoon about 
seven, four oars, and Talolo, my cook, steering. 

Majy ^th (Monday anyway). 
And see what good resolutions came to ! Here is all 
this time past, and no speed made. Well, we got to 
Malie and were received with the most friendly consid- 
eration by the rebel chief Belle and Fanny were ob- 
viously thought to be my two wives ; they were served 

141 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 their kava together, as were Mataafa and myself. Talolo 
^^^' utterly broke down as interpreter; long speeches were 
made to me by Mataafa and his orators, of which he 
could make nothing but they were **very much sur- 
prised" — his way of pronouncing obliged — and as he 
could understand nothing that fell from me except the 
same form of words, the dialogue languished and all 
business had to be laid aside. We had kava,i and then 
a dish of arrowroot; one end of the house was screened 
off for us with a fine tapa, and we lay and slept, the 
three of us, heads and tails, upon the mats till dinner. 
After dinner his illegitimate majesty and myself had a 
walk, and talked as well as my twopenny Samoan 
would admit. Then there was a dance to amuse the 
ladies before the house, and we came back by moon- 
light, the sky piled full of high faint clouds that long 
preserved some of the radiance of the sunset. The la- 
goon was very shallow ; we continually struck, for the 

1 " Kava, properly Ava, is a drink more or less intoxicating, made 
from the root of the Piper Methysticum, a Pepper plant. The root is 
grated: formerly it was chewed by fair damsels. The root thus 
broken up is rubbed about in a great pail^ with water slowly added. 
A strainer of bark cloth is plunged into it at times, and wrung out 
so as to carry away the small fragments of root. The drink is 
made and used in ceremony. Every detail is regulated by rules, and 
the manner of the mixture of the water, the straining, the handling of 
the cup, the drinking out of it and returning, should all be done ac- 
cording to a well-established manner and in certain cadences." I 
have ventured to borrow this explanation from Mr. La Farge's notes to 
his catalogue of South Sea Drawings. It may serve to make clearer 
several passages in later letters of the present collection {e. g. pp. 168, 
181^ 275). Readers of the late Lord Pembroke's South Sea Bubbles 
will remember the account of this beverage and its preparation in 
chap. VIII. of that volume. 

142 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

moon was young and the light baffling; and for a long 1892 
time we were accompanied by, and passed and re- ^^' 
passed, a huge whale-boat from Savaii, pulling perhaps 
twelve oars, and containing perhaps forty people who 
sang in time as they went. So to the hotel, where we 
slept, and returned the next Tuesday morning on the 
three same steeds. 

Meanwhile my business was still untransacted. And 
on Saturday morning, I sent down and arranged with 
Charlie Taylor to go down that afternoon. I had scarce 
got the saddle bags fixed and had not yet mounted, 
when the rain began. But it was no use delaying now ; 
off I went in a wild waterspout to Apia ; found Charlie 
(Sale) Taylor — a sesquipedalian young half-caste — not 
yet ready, had a snack of bread and cheese at the hotel 
while waiting him, and then off' to Malie. It rained all 
the way, seven miles; the road, which begins in tri- 
umph, dwindles down to a nasty, boggy, rocky foot- 
path with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there 
are eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps — the 
next morning we found one all messed with blood where 
a horse had come to grief — but my Jack is a clever fencer; 
and altogether we made good time, and got to Malie 
about dark. It is a village of very fine native houses, 
high, domed, oval buildings, open at the sides, or only 
closed with slatted Venetians. To be sure, Mataafa's is 
not the worst. It was already quite dark within, only a 
little fire of cocoa-shell blazed in the midst and showed 
us four servants; the chief was in his chapel, whence we 
heard the sound of chaunting. Presently he returned ; 
Taylor and I had our soaking clothes changed, family 
worship was held, kava brewed, I was exhibited to the 

145 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 chiefs as a man who had ridden through all that rain and 
^^y- risked deportation to serve their master ; they were bid- 
den learn my face, and remember upon all occasions to 
help and serve me. Then dinner, and politics, and fine 
speeches until twelve at night — Oh, and some more 
kava — when I could sit up no longer ; my usual bed-time 
is eight, you must remember. Then one end of the house 
was screened off for me alone, and a bed made — you 
never saw such a couch — I believe of nearly fifty (half 
at least) fine mats, by Mataafa's daughter, Kalala. Here 
I reposed alone; and on the other side of the tafa. 
Majesty and his household. Armed guards and a 
drummer patrolled about the house all night; they had 
no shift, poor devils; but stood to arms from sun-down 
to sun-up. 

About four in the morning, I was awakened by the 
sound of a whistle pipe blown outside on the dark, very 
softly and to a pleasing simple air; I really think 1 have 
hit the first phrase : 

Andante tranquillo. 
8va 



$ 



,', f rj{ r l ^^^ fl 



It sounded very peaceful, sweet and strange in the dark ; 
and I found this was a part of the routine of my rebel's 
night, and it was done (he said) to give good dreams. 
By a little before six, Taylor and I were in the saddle 
again fasting. My riding boots were so wet I could 
not get them on, so I must ride barefoot. The morning 
was fair but the roads very muddy, the weeds soaked 
us nearly to the waist. Sale was twice spilt at the 

144 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

fences, and we got to Apia a bedraggled enough pair. 1892 
All the way along the coast, the pate (small wooden ^^y- 
drum) was beating in the villages and the people crowd- 
ing to the churches in their fine clothes. Thence through 
the mangrove swamp, among the black mud and the ■ 
green mangroves, and the black and scarlet crabs, to 
Mulinuu, to the doctor's, where I had an errand, and so 
to the inn to breakfast about nine. After breakfast I 
rode home. Conceive such an outing, remember the 
pallid brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a 
biscuit, and receive the intelligence that I was rather 
the better for my journey. Twenty miles ride, sixteen 
fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain, seven 
of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six stricken 
hours' political discussions by an interpreter ; to say noth- 
ing of sleeping in a native house, at which many of our 
excellent literati would look askance of itself 

You are to understand : if I take all this bother, it is 
not only from a sense of duty, or a love of meddling — 
damn the phrase, take your choice — but from a great 
affection for Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet old fel- 
low, and he and I grew quite fulsome on Saturday night 
about our sentiments. 1 had a messenger from him to- 
day with a flannel undershirt which I had left behind 
like a gibbering idiot; and perpetrated in reply another 
baboo letter. It rains again to-day without mercy; 
blessed, welcome rains, making up for the paucity of 
the late wet season ; and when the showers slacken, I 
can hear my stream roaring in the hollow, and tell my- 
self that the cacaos are drinking deep. I am desper- 
ately hunted to finish my Samoa book before the mail 
goes ; this last chapter is equally delicate and necessary. 

145 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 The prayers of the congregation are requested. Eheu! 

^^y- and it will be ended before this letter leaves and printed 
in the States ere you can read this scribble. The first 
dinner gong has sounded; je vows salue, monsieur et 
cher confrere. Tofa, soifua ! Sleep ! long life ! as our 
Samoan salutation of farewell runs. 

Friday, May i^th. 
Well ; the last chapter, by far the most difficult and 
ungrateful, is well under way, I have been from six to 
seven hours upon it daily since I last wrote ; and that is 
all I have done forbye working at Samoan rather hard, 
and going down on Wednesday evening to the club. 
I make some progress now at the language; I am teach- 
ing Belle, which clears and exercises myself I am par- 
ticularly taken with the finesse of the pronouns. The 
pronouns are all dual and plural, and the first person, both 
in the dual and plural, has a special exclusive and inclu- 
sive form. You can conceive what fine effects of precis- 
ion and distinction can be reached in certain cases. Take 
Ruth, i., vv. 8 to 13, and imagine how those pronouns 
come in; it is exquisitely elegant, and makes the mouth 
of the litterateur to water. I am going to exercitate my 
pupil over those verses to-day for pronoun practice. 

Tuesday. 

Yesterday came yours. Well, well, if the dears pre- 
fer a week, why, I'll give them ten days, but the real 
document, from which I have scarcely varied, ran for 
one night.i I think you seem scarcely fair to Wiltshire, 

1 Referring to the marriage contract in the Beach of Falesa : see 
above, Letter xv. 

146 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

who had surely, under his beast-ignorant ways, right 1892 
noble qualities. And I think perhaps you scarce do ^^^' 
justice to the fact that this is a place of realism a ou- 
trance ; nothing extenuated or coloured. Looked at so, 
is it not, with all its tragic features, wonderfully idyllic, 
with great beauty of scene and circumstance } And 
will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is 
in the whites .^ I'll apologize for Papa Randal if you 
like ; but if I told you the whole truth — for I did ex- 
tenuate there! — and he seemed to me essential as a 
figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's 
disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives 
in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish dose 
to disgust Wiltshire. Again, the idea of publishing the 
Beach substantively is dropped — at once, both on ac- 
count of expostulation, and because it measured shorter 
than I had expected. And it was only taken up, when 
the proposed volume. Beach de Mar, petered out. It 
petered out thus: the chief of the short stories got 
sucked into Sophia Scarlet — and Sophia is a book I am 
much taken with, and mean to get to, as soon as — but 
not before — I have done David Balfour and The Young 
Chevalier. So you see you are like to hear no more of 
the Pacific or the nineteenth century for a while. The 
Young Chevalier is a story of sentiment and passion, 
which I mean to write a little differently from what I 
have been doing — if I can hit the key; rather more of 
a sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help to pre- 
pare me for Sophia, which is to contain three ladies, 
and a kind of a love affair between the heroine and a 
dying planter who is a poet ! large orders for R. L. S. 
Oh, the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts 
147 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 to support the C. J. or the President, they are past hope; 

^^y* the whites have just refused their taxes — I mean the 
council has refused to call for them, and if the council 
consented, nobody would pay; 't is a farce, and the 
curtain is going to fall briefly. Consequently in my 
History, I say as little as may be of the two dwindling 
stars. Poor devils ! I liked the one, and the other has 
a little wife, now lying in! There was no man born 
with so little animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. 
was in low spirits and never left his house, I could 
scarce refrain from going to him. 

It was a fine feeling to have finished the History; 
there ought to be a future state to reward that grind ! 
It's not literature, you know; only journalism, and 
pedantic journalism. I had but the one desire, to get 
the thing as right as might be, and avoid false concords 
— even if that! And it was more than there was time 
for. However, there it is : done. And if Samoa turns 
up again, my book has to be counted with, being the 
only narrative extant. Milton and I — if you kindly ex- 
cuse the juxtaposition — harnessed ourselves to strange 
wagons, and I at least will be found to have plodded 
very soberly with my load. There is not even a good 
sentence in it, but perhaps — I don't know — it may be 
found an honest, clear volume. 

IVednesday. 

Never got a word set down, and continues on Thurs- 
day 19th May, his own marriage day as ever was. 
News; yes. The C. J. came up to call on us! After 
five months' cessation on my side, and a decidedly pain- 
ful interchange of letters, I could not go down — could 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

not — to see him. My three ladies received him, how- 1892 
ever; he was very agreeable as usual, but refused wine, ^^^• 
beer, water, lemonade, chocolate, and at last a cigar- 
ette. Then my wife asked him, ''So you refuse to 
break bread ? " and he waved his hands amiably in an- 
swer. All my three ladies received the same impres- 
sion that he had serious matters in his mind : now we 
hear he is quite cock-a-hoop since the mail came, and 
going about as before his troubles darkened. But what 
did he want with me ? 'Tis thought he had received 
a despatch — and that he misreads it (so we fully be- 
lieve) to the effect that they are to have war ships at 
command and can make their little war after all. If it 
be so, and they do it, it will be the meanest wanton 
slaughter of poor men for the salaries of two white 
failures. But what was his errand with me } Perhaps 
to warn me that unless I behave he now hopes to be 
able to pack me off in the Cura^oa when she comes. 

I have celebrated my holiday from Samoa by a plunge 
at the beginning of The Young Chevalier. I am afraid 
my touch is a little broad in a love story ; I can't mean 
one thing and write another. As for women, I am no 
more in any fear of them ; I can do a sort all right ; age 
makes me less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in 
fear of grossness. However, this David Balfour's love 
affair, that's all right — might be read out to a mother's 
meeting — or a daughter's meeting. The difficulty in. 
a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling 
on one string; it is manifold, 1 grant, but the root fact 
is there unchanged, and the sentiment being very in- 
tense, and already very much handled in letters, posi- 
tively calls for a little pawing and gracing. With a 

149 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 writer of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of point 
^^y* of view, this all shoves toward grossness — positively 
even towards the far more damnable closeness. This 
has kept me off the sentiment hitherto, and now I am 
to try: Lord! Of course Meredith can do it, and so 
could Shakespeare; but with all my romance, I am a 
realist and a prosaist, and a most fanatical lover of plain 
physical sensations plainly and expressly rendered; 
hence my perils. To do love in the same spirit as I did 
(for instance) D. Balfour's fatigue in the heather; my 
dear sir, there were grossness — ready made! And 
hence, how to sugar? However, I have nearly done 
with Marie-Madeleine, and am in good hopes of Marie- 
Salome, the real heroine; the other is only a prologuial 
heroine to introduce the hero. 

Friday, 

Anyway, the first prologuial episode is done, and 
Fanny likes it. There are only four characters ; Francis 
Blair of Balmile (Jacobite Lord Gladsmuir), my hero; the 
Master of Ballantrae; Paradon, a wine-seller of Avig- 
non; Marie-Madeleine his wife. These two last 1 am 
now done with, and I think they are successful, and 
I hope I have Balmile on his feet; and the style seems 
to be found. It is a little charged and violent ; sins on 
the side of violence; but I think will carry the tale. 1 
think it is a good idea so to introduce my hero, being 
made love to by an episodic woman. This queer tale 
— I mean queer for me — has taken a great hold upon 
me. Where the devil shall I go next } This is simply 
the tale of a coup de tete of a young man and a young 
woman ; with a nearly, perhaps a wholly, tragic sequel, 

150 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

which I desire to make thinkable right through, and 1892 
sensible ; to make the reader, as far as I shall be able, ^^^^ 
eat and drink and breathe it. Marie-Salome des Saintes- 
Maries is, I think, the heroine's name; she has got to 
be yet: sursum cor da! So has the young Chevalier, 
whom I have not yet touched, and who comes next 
in order. Characters: Balmile, or Lord Gladsmuir, 
comme votes voule^; Prince Charlie; Earl Marischal; 
Master of Ballantrae ; and a spy, and Dr. Archie Camp- 
bell, and a few nondescripts ; then, of women, Marie- 
Salome and Flora Blair; seven at the outside; really 
four full lengths, and I suppose a half-dozen episodic 
profiles. How I must bore you with these ineptitudes ! 
Have patience. I am going to bed ; it is (of all hours) 
eleven. I have been forced in (since I began to write 
to you) to blatter to Fanny on the subject of my hero- 
ine, there being two cruces as to her life and history: 
how came she alone } and how far did she go with the 
Chevalier ? The second must answer itself when I get 
near enough to see. The first is a back-breaker. Yet 
I know there are many reasons why 2ifiUe de famiUe, 
romantic, adventurous, ambitious, innocent of the world, 
might run from her home in these days; might she not 
have been threatened with a convent .? might there not 
be some Huguenot business mixed in ? Here am I, far 
from books ; if you can help me with a suggestion, I 
shall say God bless you. She has to be new run away 
from a strict family, well-justified in her own wild but 
honest eyes, and meeting these three men, Charies 
Edward, Marischal, and Balmile, through the accident of 
a fire at an inn. She must not run from a marriage, I 
think; it would bring her in the wrong frame of mind. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 Once I can get her, sola, on the highway, all were well 
^^^* with my narrative. Perpend. And help if you can. 

Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day 
received the visit of his sow from Tonga; and the son 
proves to be a very pretty, attractive young daughter! 
I gave all the boys kava in honour of her arrival; along 
with a lean, side-whiskered Tongan, dimly supposed to be 
Lafaele's step-father; and they have been having a good 
time; in the end of my verandah, I hear Simi, my pres- 
ent incapable steward, talking Tongan with the nonde- 
script papa. Simi, our out-door boy, burst a succession 
of blood-vessels over our work, and I had to make a 
position for the wreck of one of the noblest figures of a 
man I ever saw. I believe I may have mentioned the 
other day how I had to put my horse to the trot, the 
canter and (at last) the gallop to run him down. In a 
photograph I hope to send you (perhaps with this) you 
will see Simi standing in the verandah in profile. As a 
steward, one of his chief points is to break crystal ; he 
is great on fracture — what do I say } -^ explosion ! He 
cleans a glass, and the shards scatter like a comef s 
bowels. 

N. B. — If I should by any chance be deported, the 
first of the rules hung up for that occasion is to com- 
municate with you by telegraph. — Mind, I do not fear 
it, but it is possible. 

Monday i^th. 

We have had a devil of a morning of upset and bustle; 
the bronze candlestick Faauma has returned to the fam- 
ily, in time to take her position ot stepmamma^ and it is 
pretty to see how the child is at once at home, and all 
her terrors ended. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

2']th. Mail day. 
And I don't know that I have much to report. I may 1892 
have to leave for Malie as soon as these mail packets are ^^^" 
made up. 'Tis a necessity (if it be one) I rather deplore. 
I think I should have liked to lazy ; but I dare say all it 
means is the delay of a day or so in harking back to 
David Balfour; that respectable youth chides at being 
left (where he is now) in Glasgow with the Lord Advo- 
cate, and after five years in the British Linen, who shall 
blame him ? I was all forenoon yesterday down in Apia, 
dictating, and Lloyd typewriting, the conclusion of Sa- 
moa; and then at home correcting till the dinner bell; 
and in the evening again till eleven of the clock. This 
morning I have made up most of my packets, and I 
think my mail is all ready but two more, and the tag of 
this. I would never deny (as D. B. might say) that I 
was rather tired of it. But I have a damned good dose 
of the devil in my pipe-stem atomy ; I have had my 
little holiday outing in my kick at The Young Chevalier^ 
and I guess I can settle to David Balfour to-morrow or 
Friday like a little man. I wonder if any one had ever 
more energy upon so little strength } — I know there is 
a frost; the Samoa book can only increase that — I can't 
help it, that book is not written for me but for Miss Man- 
ners ; but I mean to break that frost inside two years, and 
pull off a big success, and Vanity whispers in my ear that 
I have the strength. If I haven't, whistle ower the lave 
o't! I can do without glory, and perhaps the time is not 
far off when I can do without corn. It is a time coming 
soon enough, anyway ; and I have endured some two and 
forty years without public shame, and had a good time 
as I did it. If only I could secure a violent death, what 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 a fine success! I wish to die in my boots; no more 
^^^' Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be 
shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, 
rather than pass again through that slow dissolution. 

I fancy this gloomy ramble is caused by a twinge of 
age ; I put on an under-shirt yesterday (it was the only 
one I could find) that barely came under my trousers ; 
and just below it, a fine healthy rheumatism has now 
settled like a fire in my hip. From such small causes 
do these valuable considerations flow ! 

I shall now say adieu, dear Sir, having ten rugged 
miles before me and the horrors of a native feast and 
parliament without an interpreter, for to-day I go alone. 

Yours ever, 

R. L. S. 



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XIX 



Sunday, zgth May. 

How am I to overtake events ? On Wednesday, as 1892 
soon as my mail was finished, I had a wild whirl to ^^y* 
look forward to. Immediately after dinner. Belle, Lloyd 
and I, set out on horseback, they to the club, I to Hag- 
gard's, thence to the hotel where I had supper ready for 
them. All next day we hung round Apia with our 
whole house-crowd in Sunday array, hoping for the 
mail steamer with a menagerie on board. No such 
luck; the ship delayed; and at last, about three, I had 
to send them home again, a failure of a day's pleasuring 
that does not bear to be discussed. Lloyd was so sick- 
ened that he returned the same night to Vailima, Belle 
and I held on, sat most of the evening on the hotel ve- 
randah stricken silly with fatigue and disappointment, 
and genuine sorrow for our poor boys and girls, and 
got to bed with rather dismal appreciations of the 
morrow.^ 

These were more than justified, and yet I never had 
a jollier day than Friday 27th. By 7.30 Belle and I had 
breakfast; we had scarce done before my mother was 
at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to take 

1 A family expedition to visit Mataafa at Malie being projected for 
that day. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 her not very dashing charger home again. By 8. 10 we 
^^y- were all on the landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we 
had got away in a boat with two inches of green wood 
on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no boat 
flag, two defective rowlocks, two wretched apologies for 
oars, and two boys — one a Tongan half-caste, one a 
white lad, son of the Tonga schoolmaster, and a sailor 
lad — to pull us. All this was our first taste of the ten- 
der mercies of Taylor (the sesquipedalian half-caste in- 
troduced two letters back, I believe). We had scarce 
got round Mulinuu when Sale Taylor's heart misgave 
him ; he thought we had missed the tide ; called a halt, 
and set off ashore to find canoes. Two were found; in 
one my mother and I were embarked with the two bis- 
cuit tins (my present to the feast), and the bag with our 
dry clothes, on which my mother was perched — and 
her cap was on the top of it — feminine hearts please 
sympathise; all under the guidance of Sale. In the 
other Belle and our guest, Tauilo, a chief-woman, the 
mother of my cook, were to have followed. And the 
boys were to have been left with the boat. But Tauilo 
refused. And the four. Belle, Tauilo, Frank the sailor- 
boy, and Jimmie the Tongan half-caste, set off in the 
boat across that rapidly shoaling bay of the lagoon. 

How long the next scene lasted, I could never tell. 
Sale was always trying to steal away with our canoe 
and leave the other four, probably for six hours, in an 
empty, leaky boat, without so much as an orange or a 
cocoanut on board, and under the direct rays of the sun. 
I had at last to stop him by taking the spare paddle off 
the outrigger and sticking it in the ground — depth, 
perhaps two feet — width of the bay, say three miles. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

At last I bid him land me and my mother and go back 1892 
for the other ladies. "The coast is so rugged," said ^^^* 
Sale. — ''What.^" I said, ''all these villages and no 
landing-place.?" — ''Such is the nature of Samoans," 
said he. Well, I'll find a landing-place, I thought; and 
presently I said, "Now we are going to land there."— - 
"We can but try," said the bland Sale, with resigna- 
tion. Never saw a better landing-place in my life. 
Here the boat joined us. My mother and Sale contin- 
ued in the canoe alone, and Belle and I and Tauilo set 
off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was about the size of both 
of us put together and a piece over ; she used us like a 
mouse with children. I had started barefoot ; Belle had 
soon to pull off her gala shoes and stockings; the mud 
was as deep as to our knees, and so slippery that (mov- 
ing, as we did, in Indian file, between dense scratching 
tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to sup- 
port each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from 
the rear. You can conceive we were got up to kill. 
Belle in an embroidered white dress and white hat, I in 
a suit of Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors ; and 
conceive us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhe- 
sive clay, and above, streaming with heat. I suppose 
it was better than three miles, but at last we made the 
end of Malie. I asked if we could find no water to 
wash our feet; and our nursemaid guided us to a pool. 
We sat down on the pool side, and our nursemaid 
washed our feet and legs for us — ladies first, I suppose 
out of a sudden respect to the insane European fancies : 
such a luxury as you can scarce imagine. I felt a new 
man after it. But before we got to the King's house 
we were sadly muddied once more. It was i p. m. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about 
^^^' five minutes, so we made fair time over our bog-holes. 
But the war dances were over, and we came in time 
to see only the tail end (some two hours) of the food 
presentation. In Mataafa's house three chairs were set 
for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native 
house without the blinds down is like a verandah. All 
the green in front was surrounded with sheds, some of 
flapping canvas, some of green palm boughs, where (in 
three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by villages 
in a fine glow of many-hued array. There were folks 
in tapa, and folks in patchwork; there was every col- 
our of the rainbow in a spot or a cluster; there were men 
with their heads gilded with powdered sandal-wood, 
others with heads all purple, stuck full of the petals of a 
flower. In the midst there was a growing field of out-- 
spread food, gradually covering acres; the gifts were 
brought in, now by chanting deputations, now by car- 
riers in a file ; they were brandished aloft and declaimed 
over, with polite sacramental exaggerations, by the of- 
ficial receiver. He, a stalwart, well-oiled quadragena- 
rian, shone with sweat from his exertions, brandishing 
cooked pigs. At intervals, from one of the squatted 
villages, an orator would arise. The field was almost 
beyond the reach of any human speaking voice; the 
proceedings besides continued in the midst; yet it was 
possible to catch snatches of this elaborate and cut-and- 
dry oratory — it was possible for me, for instance, to 
catch the description of my gift and myself as the alu 
Tusitala, O le alii malo tetele — the chief White In- 
formation, the chief of the great Governments. Gay 
designation } In the house, in our three curule chairs, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

we sat and looked on. On our left a little group of the 1892 
family. In front of us, at our feet, an ancient Talking- ^^y* 
man, crowned with green leaves, his profile almost ex- 
actly Dante's; Popo his name. He had worshipped 
idols in his youth; he had been full grown before the 
first missionary came hither from Tahiti; this makes 
him over eighty. Near by him sat his son and col- 
league. In the group on our left, his little grandchild 
sat with her legs crossed and her hands turned, the 
model already (at some three years old) of Samoan eti- 
quette. Still further off to our right, Mataafa sat on 
the ground through all the business ; and still I saw his 
lips moving, and the beads of his rosary slip stealthily 
through his hand. We had kava, and the King's drink- 
ing was hailed by the Popos (father and son) with a 
singular ululation, perfectly new to my ears; it means, 
to the expert, '' Long live Tuiatua; " to the inexpert, is a 
mere voice of barbarous wolves. We had dinner, re- 
tired a bit behind the central pillar of the house; and 
when the King was done eating, the ululation was re- 
peated. I had my eyes on Mataafa's face, and I saw 
pride and gratified ambition spring to life there and be 
instantly sucked in again. It was the first time, since 
the difference with Laupepa, that Popo and his son had 
openly joined him, and given him the due cry as Tuia- 
tua — one of the eight royal names of the islands, as I 
hope you will know before this reaches you. 

Not long after we had dined, the food bringing was 
over. The gifts (carefully noted and tallied as they 
came in) were now announced by a humorous orator, 
who convulsed the audience, introducing singing notes, 
now on the name of the article, now on the number; 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 six thousand odd heads of taro, three hundred and 
^^y- nineteen cooked pigs; and one thing that particularly 
caught me (by good luck), a single turtle ''for the King " 
le tost mo le tupu. Then came one of the strangest 
sights I have yet witnessed. The two most important 
persons there (bar Mataafa) were Popo and his son. 
They rose, holding their long shod rods of talking- 
men, passed forth from the house, broke into a strange 
dance, the father capering with outstretched arms and 
rod, the son crouching and gambolling beside him in a 
manner indescribable, and presently began to extend 
the circle of this dance among the acres of cooked food. 
Whatever they leaped over, whatever they called for, be- 
came theirs. To see mediaeval Dante thus demean him- 
self struck a kind of a chill of incongruity into our Philis- 
tine souls ; but even in a great part of the Samoan con- 
course, these antique and (I understand) quite local 
manners awoke laughter. One of my biscuit tins and 
a live calf were among the spoils he claimed, but the 
large majority of the cooked food (having once proved 
his dignity) he re-presented to the King. 

Then came the turn of le alii Tmitala. He would 
not dance, but he was given — five live hens, four 
gourds of oil, four fine tapas, a hundred heads of taro, 
two cooked pigs, a cooked shark, two or three cocoa- 
nut branches strung with kava, and the turtle, who 
soon after breathed his last, I believe, from sunstroke. 
It was a royal present for ' ' the chief of the great powers. " 
I should say the gifts were, on the proper signal, 
dragged out of the field of food by a troop of young 
men, all with their lavalavas kilted almost into a loin- 
cloth. The art is to swoop on the food-field, pick up 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

with unerring swiftness the right things and quantities, 1892 
swoop forth again on the open, and separate, leaving ^^' 
the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of 
birds in a corn-field. This reminds me of a very in- 
humane but beautiful passage I had forgotten in its 
place. The gift-giving was still in full swing, when 
there came a troop of some ninety men all in tapa lava- 
lavas of a purplish colour; they paused, and of a sudden 
there went up from them high into the air a flight of 
live chickens, which, as they came down again, were 
sent again into the air, for perhaps a minute, from the 
midst of a singular turmoil of flying arms and shouting 
voices ; I assure you, it was very beautiful to see, but 
how many chickens were killed .? 

No sooner was my food set out than I was to be 
going. I had a little serious talk with Mataafa on the 
floor, and we went down to the boat, where we got 
our food aboard, such a cargo — like the Swiss Family 
Robinson, we said. However, a squall began, Tauilo 
refused to let us go, and we came back to the house 
for half-an-hour or so, when my ladies distinguished 
themselves by walking through a Fono (council), my 
mother actually taking up a position between Mataafa 
and Popo! It was about five when we started — turtle, 
pigs, taro, etc., my mother, Belle, myself, Tauilo, a 
portly friend of hers with the voice of an angel^ and a 
pronunciation so delicate and true that you could fol- 
low Samoan as she sang, and the two hired boys Frank 
and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and the two slip- 
pery rowlocks to impel the whole. Sale Taylor took 
the canoe and a strong Samoan to paddle him. Pres- 
ently after he went in shore, and passed us a little after, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 with his arms folded, and two strong Samoans impel- 
^^y- ling him Apia-ward. This was too much for Belle, 
who hailed, taunted him, and made him return to the 
boat with one of the Samoans, setting Jimmie instead 
in the canoe. Then began our torment, Sale and the 
Samoan took the oars, sat on the same thwart (where 
they could get no swing on the boat had they tried), 
and deliberately ladled at the lagoon. We lay en- 
chanted. Night fell ; there was a light visible on shore ; 
it did not move. The two women sang, Belle joining 
them in the hymns she has learned at family worship. 
Then a squall came up; we sat awhile in roaring mid- 
night under rivers of rain, and when it blew by, there 
was the light again, immovable. A second squall fol- 
lowed, one of the worst I was ever out in ; we could 
scarce catch our breath in the cold, dashing deluge. 
When it went, we were so cold that the water in the 
bottom of the boat (which 1 was then bailing) seemed 
like a warm footbath in comparison, and Belle and I, who 
were still barefoot, were quite restored by laving in it. 
All this time 1 had kept my temper, and refrained as 
far as might be from any interference, for 1 saw (in our 
friend's mulish humor) he always contrived to twist it 
to our disadvantage. But now came the acute point. 
Young Frank now took an oar. He was a little fellow, 
near as frail as myself, and very short; if he weighed 
nine stone, it was the outside; but his blood was up. 
He took stroke, moved the big Samoan forward to bow, 
and set to work to pull him round in fine style. In- 
stantly a kind of race competition — almost race hatred 
— sprang up. We jeered the Samoan. Sale declared it 
was the trim of the boat: "if this lady was aft" (Tau- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

ilo's portly friend) "he would row round Frank." We 1892 
insisted on her coming aft, and Frank still rowed round ^^^' 
the Samoan. When the Samoan caught a crab (the 
thing was continual with these wretched oars and row- 
locks), we shouted and jeered; when Frank caught one, 
Sale and the Samoan jeered and yelled. But anyway 
the boat moved, and presently we got up with Mulinuu, 
where I finally lost my temper, when I found that Sale 
proposed to go ashore and make a visit — in fact, we all 
three did. It is not worth while going into, but I must 
give you one snatch of the subsequent conversation as 
we pulled round Apia bay. "This Samoan," said 
Sale, "received seven German bullets in the field of 
Fangalii." "I am delighted to hear it," said Belle. 
"His brother was killed there," pursued Sale; and 
Belle, prompt as an echo, "Then there are no more of 
the family? how delightful!" Sale was sufficiently 
surprised to change the subject; he began to praise 
Frank's rowing with insufferable condescension: "But 
it is after all not to be wondered at," said he, "because 
he has been for some time a sailor. My good man, is 
it three or five years that you have been to sea } " And 
Frank, in a defiant shout: "Two!" Whereupon, so 
high did the ill-feeling run, that we three clapped and 
applauded and shouted, so that the President (whose 
house we were then passing) doubtless started at the 
sounds. It was nine when we got to the hotel; at first 
no food was to be found, but we skirmished up some 
bread and cheese and beer and brandy; and (having 
changed our wet clothes for the rather less wet in our 
bags) supped on the verandah. 

Saturday 28tb. I was wakened about 6.30, long 
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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 past my usual hour, by a benevolent passer-by. My 
May. ^^Yt\e lay on the verandah at my door, and the man 
woke me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when 
we put it on board the day before. All morning 1 ran 
the gauntlet of men and women coming up to me: 
** Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead." I gave half of it 
to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; 
and we got a damaged shell, and two splendid meals, 
beefsteak one day and soup the next. The horses 
came for us about 9.30. It was waterspouting; we 
were drenched before we got out of the town ; the road 
was a fine going Highland trout stream ; it thundered deep 
and frequent, and my mother's horse would not better 
on a walk. At last she took pity on us, and very nobly 
proposed that Belle and I should ride ahead. We were 
mighty glad to do so, for we were cold. Presently, I 
said I should ride back for my mother, but it thundered 
again ; Belle is afraid of thunder, and I decided to see 
her through the forest before I returned for my other 
hen — I may say, my other wet hen. About the mid- 
dle of the wood, where it is roughest and steepest, we 
met three pack-horses with barrels of lime-juice. I 
piloted Belle past these — it is not very easy in such a 
road — and then passed them again myself, to pilot my 
mother. This effected, it began to thunder again, so I 
rode on hard after Belle. When I caught up with her, 
she was singing Samoan hymns to support her terrors! 
We were all back, changed, and at table by lunch time, 
1 1 A. M. Nor have any of us been the worse for it sin- 
syne. That is pretty good for a woman of my mother's 
age and an invalid of my standing; above all, as Tauilo 
was laid up with a bad cold, probably increased by rage. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Friday, yd June. 

On Wednesday the club could not be held, and I ^ 
must ride down town and to and fro all afternoon de- June. 
livering messages, then dined and rode up by the young 
moon. I had plenty news when I got back; there is 
great talk in town of my deportation : it is thought they 
have written home to Downing Street requesting my 
removal, which leaves me not much alarmed; what I 
do rather expect is that H. J. Moors and I may be 
haled up before the C. J. to stand a trial for /^5^-Majesty. 
Well, we'll try and live it through. 

The rest of my history since Monday has been un- 
adulterated David Balfour. In season and out of sea- 
son, night and day, David and his innocent harem — 
let me be just, he never has more than the two — are 
on my mind. Think of David Balfour with a pair of 
fair ladies — very nice ones too — hanging round him. 
I really believe David is as good a character as anybody 
has a right to ask for in a novel. I have finished draft- 
ing Chapter xx. to-day, and feel it all ready to froth 
when the spigot is turned. 

Oh, I forgot — and do forget. What did I mean } A 
waft of cloud has fallen on my mind, and I will write no 
more. 

Wednesday, I believe, 8th June. 
Lots of David, and lots of David, and the devil any 
other news. Yesterday we were startled by great guns 
firing a salute, and to-day Whitmee (missionary) rode 
up to lunch, and we learned it was the Curacoa come 
in, the ship (according to rumour) in which I was to be 
deported. I went down to meet my fate, and the cap- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 tain is to dine with me Saturday, so I guess I am not 
June. gQi^g this voyage. Even with the particularity with 
which I write to you, how much of my life goes unex- 
pressed; my troubles with a madman by the name of 
, a genuine living lunatic, I believe, and jolly dan- 
gerous; my troubles about poor , all these have 

dropped out; yet for moments they were very instant, 
and one of them is always present with me. 

I have finished copying Chapter xxi. of David — 
*' Solm cum sola ; we travel together." Chapter xxii., 
*' Solus cum sola; we keep house together," is already 
drafted. To the end of xxi., makes more than 150 
pages of my manuscript — damn this hair — and I only 
designed the book to run to about 200; but when you 
introduce the female sect, a book does run away with 
you. I am very curious to see what you will think of 
my two girls. My own opinion is quite clear; I am in 
love with both. I foresee a few pleasant years of spirit- 
ual flirtations. The creator (if I may name myself, for 
the sake of argument, by such a name) is essentially 
unfaithful. For the duration of the two chapters in 
which I dealt with Miss Grant, I totally forgot my hero- 
ine, and even — but this is a flat secret — tried to win 
away David. I think I must try some day to marry 
Miss Grant. I'm blest if I don't think I've got that hair 
out! which seems triumph enough; so I conclude. 

Tuesday. 

Your infinitesimal correspondence has reached me, 
and I have the honour to refer to it with scorn. It con- 
tains only one statement of conceivable interest, that 
your health is better; the rest is null, and so far as dis- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

quisitory unsound. I am all right, but David Balfour is 1892 
ailing; this came from my visit to the man-of-war, ■^""®' 
w^here I had a cup of tea, and the most of that night 
walked the verandah with extraordinary convictions of 
guilt and ruin, many of which (but not all) proved to 
have fled with the day, taking David along with them; 
he R. I. P. in Chapter xxii. 

On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched 
up Captain Gibson to dinner; Sunday I was all day at 
Samoa, and had a pile of visitors. Yesterday got my 
mail, including your despicable sheet; was fooled with 
a visit from the high chief Asi, went down at 4 p. m. 
to my Samoan lesson from Whitmee — I think I shall 
learn from him, he does not fool me with cockshot 
rules that are demolished next day, but professes igno- 
rance like a man ; the truth is, the grammar has still to 
be expiscated — dined with Haggard, and got home 
about nine. 

IVednesday. 
The excellent Clarke up here almost all day yesterday, 
a man I esteem and like to the soles of his boots ; I pre- 
fer him to any one in Samoa, and to most people in the 
world; a real good missionary, with the inestimable 
advantage of having grown up a layman. Pity they all 
can't get that! It recalls my old proposal, which de- 
lighted Lady Taylor so much, that every divinity stu- 
dent should be thirty years old at least before he was 
admitted. Boys switched out of college into a pulpit, 
what chance have they ? That any should do well 
amazes me, and the most are just what was to be ex- 
pected. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Saturday. 
1892 I must tell you of our feast. It was long promised to 
June, ij^g boys, and came off yesterday in one of their new 
houses. My good Simele arrived from Savaii that morn- 
ing asking for political advice; then we had Tauilo; 
Elena's father, a talking-man of Tauilo's family ; Talolo's 
cousin ; and a boy of Simele's family, who attended on 
his dignity; then Metu, the meat-man — you have never 
heard of him, but he is a great person in our household 
— brought a lady and a boy — and there was another 
infant — eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty 
strong. You should have seen our procession, going 
(about two o'clock), all in our best clothes, to the hall 
of feasting! All in our Sunday's best. The new house 
had been hurriedly finished ; the rafters decorated with 
flowers ; the floor spread, native style, with green leaves ; 
we had given a big porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh 
beef, a tin of biscuit, cocoanuts, etc. Our places were 
all arranged with much care; the native ladies of the 
house facing our party ; the sides filled up by the men ; 
the guests, please observe : the two chief people, male 
and female, were placed with our family, the rest be- 
tween S. and the native ladies. After the feast was 
over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a 
very elaborate affair, and I thought had like to have 
made Simele very angry; he is really a considerable 
chief, but he and Tauilo were not called till after all our 
family, and the guests, I suppose the principle being that 
he was still regarded as one of the household. I forgot 
to say that our black boy did not turn up when the 
feast was ready. Off went the two cooks, found him, 
decorated him with huge red hibiscus flowers — he 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

was in a very dirty undershirt — brought him back be- 1892 
tween them like a reluctant maid, and thrust him into a ^^"^* 
place between Faauma and Elena, where he was petted 
and ministered to. When his turn came in the kava 
drinking — and you may be sure, in their contemptuous, 
affectionate kindness for him, as for a good dog, it came 
rather earlier than it ought — he was cried under a new 
name. Aleki is what they make of his own name 

Arrick; but instead of < ,,, . [ Aleki!" it was 

' C le ipu o 3 

called '' le ipu Vailima,'' and it was explained that he 
had "taken his chief-name! " a jest at which the plan- 
tation still laughs. Kava done, I made a little speech, 
Henry translating. If I had been well, I should have 
alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up ; so only 
alluded to my guest of all this month, the Tongan, 
Tomas, and to Simele, partly for the jest of making him 
translate compliments to himself The talking-man re- 
plied with many handsome compliments to me, in the 
usual flood of Samoan fluent neatness; and we left 
them to an afternoon of singing and dancing. Must 
stop now, as my right hand is very bad again. I am 
trying to write with my left. 

Sunday. 

About half-past eight last night, I had gone to my 
own room, Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny's, every 
one else in bed, only two boys on the premises — the 
two little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I suppose 
II or 12, and the new steward, a Wallis islander, speak- 
ing no English and about fifty words of Samoan, re- 
cently promoted from the bush work, and a most good, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 anxious, timid lad of 15 or 16 — looks like 17 or 18, of 
•^""^' course — they grow fast here. In comes Mitaiele to 
Lloyd, and told some rigmarole about Paatalise (the 
steward's name) wanting to go and see his family in 
the bush. — ''But he has no family in the bush," said 
Lloyd. '*No," said Mitaiele. They went to the boy's 
bed (they sleep in the walled-in compartment of the 
verandah, once my dressing room) and called at once 
for me. He lay like one asleep, talking in drowsy tones 
but without excitement, and at times ''cheeping" like 
a frightened mouse; he was quite cool to the touch, 
and his pulse not fast; his breathing seemed wholly 
ventral ; the bust still, the belly moving strongly. Pre- 
sently, he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with 
his head down not three feet from the floor and his 
body all on a stretch forward, like a striking snake : I 
say "ran," but this strange movement was not swift. 
Lloyd and I mastered him and got him back in bed. 
Soon there was another and more desperate attempt to 
escape, in which Lloyd had his ring broken. Then we 
bound him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes, 
boards and pillows. He lay there and sometimes 
talked, sometimes whispered, sometimes wept like an 
angry child; his principal word was "Faamolemole" — 
"Please" — and he kept telling us at intervals that his 
family were calling him. During this interval, by the 
special grace of God, my boys came home ; we had al- 
ready called in Arrick, the black boy, now we had that 
Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who comes from 
Paatalise's own island and can alone communicate with 
him freely. Lloyd went to bed, I took the first watch, 
and sat in my room reading, while Lafaele and Arrick 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I 1892 
ran into the verandah; there was Paatalise free of all his •^""^* 
bonds and Lafaele holding him. To tell what followed 
is impossible. We were five people at him — Lafaele and 
Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the 
struggle lasted until i a. m. before we had him bound. 
One detail for a specimen ; Lloyd and I had charge of 
one leg, we were both sitting on it, and lo! we were 
both tossed into the air — I, I dare say, a couple of feet. 
At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, 
by his wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most in- 
humane business, but what could we do ? it was all we 
could do to manage it even so. The strength of the 
paroxysms had been steadily increasing, and we trem- 
bled for the next. And now I come to pure Rider Hag- 
gard. Lafaele announced that the boy was very bad, 
and he would get ''some medicine" which was a 
family secret of his own. Some leaves were brought 
mysteriously in; chewed, placed on the boy's eyes, 
dropped in his ears (see Hamlet) and stuck up his nos- 
trils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered 
the patient with his hand; and by about 2 a. m. he was 
in a deep sleep, and from that time he showed no symp- 
tom of dementia whatever. The medicine (says La- 
faele) is principally used for the wholesale slaughter of 
families ; he himself feared last night that his dose was 
fatal; only one other person, on this island, knows the 
secret; and she, Lafaele darkly whispers, has abused it. 
This remarkable tree we must try to identify. 

The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a 
straight-waistcoat, taught us to bandage, examined the 
boy and saw he was apparently well — he insisted on 

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1892 doing his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first 
•^""^' came down kissed all the family at breakfast! The 

Doctor was greatly excited, as may be supposed, about 

Lafaele's medicine. 

Tuesdaj;. 

All yesterday writing my mail by the hand of Belle, 
to save my wrist. This is a great invention, to which 
I shall stick, if it can be managed. We had some 
alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all night for a 
benediction. This lunatic asylum exercise has no at- 
tractions for any of us. 

I don't know if I remembered to say how much 
pleased I was with Across the Plains in every way, in- 
side and out, and you and me. The critics seem to 
taste it, too, as well as could be hoped, and I believe it 
will continue to bring me in a few shillings a year for a 
while. But such books pay only indirectly. 

To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and 
how well my boys behaved, remember that they be- 
lieved P/s ravings, they knew that his dead family, 
thirty strong, crowded the front verandah and called 
on him to come to the other world. They knew that 
his dead brother had met him that afternoon in the 
bush and struck him on both temples. And remem- 
ber! we are fighting the dead, and they had to go out 
again in the black night, which is the dead man's em- 
pire. Yet last evening, when I thought P. was going 
to repeat the performance, I sent down for Lafaele, who 
had leave of absence, and he and his wife came up 
about eight o'clock with a lighted brand. These are 
the things for which I have to forgive my old cattle-man 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic — so are 1892 
the shortcomings, to be sure. •^""^• 

It came over me the other day suddenly that this 
diary of mine to you would make good pickings after I 
am dead, and a man could make some kind of a book 
out of it without much trouble. So, for God's sake, 
don't lose them, and they will prove a piece of provi- 
sion for my ''poor old family," as Simele calls it. 

About my coming to Europe, I get more and more 
doubtful, and rather incline to Ceylon again as place of 
meeting. I am so absurdly well here in the tropics, 
that it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have 
never once stood Sydney. Anyway, I shall have the 
money for it all ahead, before I think of such a thing. 

We had a bowl of Punch on your birthday, which my 
incredible mother somehow knew and remembered. 

I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature 
of an income that would come in — mine has all got to 
be gone and fished for with the immortal mind of man. 
What I want is the income that really comes in of itself 
while all you have to do is just to blossom and exist and 
sit on chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to 
have to mind the critics, and not even the darkest of the 
crowd — Sidney Colvin. I should probably amuse my- 
self with works that would make your hair curl, if you 
had any left. 

R. L. S. 



173 



XX 



Saturday, 2nd July, 1892. 
1892 The character of my handwriting is explained, alas! 
Ju^y- by scrivener's cramp. This also explains how long I 
have let the paper lie plain. 



I was busy copying David Balfour with my left hand 
•—a most laborious task — Fanny was down at the na- 
tive house superintending the floor, Lloyd down in Apia, 
and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I heard the 
latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah ; 
and there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an 
axe in his hand and dressed out in green ferns, dancing. 
I ran downstairs and found all my house boys on the 
back verandah, watching him through the dining-room. 
I asked what it meant .^ — ''Dance belong his place," 
they said. — "I think this no time to dance," said I. 
**Has he done his work.^" — ''No," they told me, 
"away bush all morning." But there they all stayed 
on the back verandah. I went on alone through the 
dining-room, and bade him stop. He did so, shouldered 
the axe, and began to walk away; but I called him 
back, walked up to him, and took the axe out of his 
unresisting hands. The boy is in all things so good, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

that I can scarce say I was afraid; only I felt it had to be 1892 
stopped ere he could work himself up by dancing to ^^^^' 
some craziness. Our house boys protested they were 
not afraid; all I know is they were all watching him 
round the back door and did not follow me till I had 
the axe. As for the out boys, who were working with 
Fanny in the native house, they thought it a very bad 
business, and made no secret of their fears. 

IVednesday, 6th. 
I have no account to give of my stewardship these 
days, and there's a day more to account for than mere 
arithmetic would tell you. For we have had two Mon- 
day Fourths, to bring us at last on the right side of the 
meridian, having hitherto been an exception in the 
world and kept our private date. Business has filled 
my hours sans intermission. 

Tuesday, nth. 

I am doing no work and my mind is in abeyance. 
Fanny and Belle are sewing-machining in the next 
room ; I have been pulling down their hair, and Fanny 
has been kicking me, and now I am driven out. Austin 
I have been chasing about the verandah; now he has 
gone to his lessons, and I make believe to write to you 
in despair. But there is nothing in my mind ; I swim 
in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten nut; I shall 
soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry away 
some part of the machinery. I have got your insufficient 
letter, for which I scorn to thank you. I have had no 
review by Gosse, none by Birrell; another time if I have 
a letter in the Times, you might send me the text as 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 well; also please send me a cricket bat and a cake, and 
J"^y- when I come home for the holidays, I should like to 
have a pony. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Jacob Tonson. 

P, S. I am quite well; I hope you are quite well. 
The world is too much with us, and my mother bids 
me bind my hair and lace my bodice blue. 



176 



XXI 



My dear Colvin, — This is Friday night, the ( I believe) 1892 
1 8th or 20th August or September. I shall probably ^"S- 
regret to-morrow having written you with my own 
hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here 
in the workman's house, where I and Belle and Lloyd 
and Austin are pigging; the rest are at cards in the 
main residence. I have not joined them because "belly 
belong me" has been kicking up, and 1 have just taken 
1 5 drops of laudanum. 

On Tuesday, the party set out — self in white cap, 
velvet coat, cords and yellow half boots. Belle in a white 
kind of suit and white cap to match mine, Lloyd in 
white clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat, 
Graham in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old over- 
seer) in blue coat and black kilt, and the great Lafaele 
with a big ship-bag on his saddle-bow. We left the 
mail at the P. O., had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 
set out westward to the place of tryst. ^ This was by a 
little shrunken brook in a deep channel of mud, on the 

1 The expedition to Mataafa's camp, of which the history is thus in- 
troduced without preface, was one undertaken in company with the 
Countess of Jersey and some members of her family, who were then 
on a visit to the island. Owing to the position of Mataafa as a rival 

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1892 far side of which, in a thicket of low trees, all full of 
^^^' moths of shadow and butterflies of sun, we lay down 
to await her ladyship. Whisky and water, then a 
sketch of the encampment for which we all posed to 
Belle, passed off the time until 3.30. Then 1 could hold 
on no longer. 30 minutes late. Had the secret oozed 
out ? Were they arrested ? 1 got my horse, crossed 
the brook again, and rode hard back to the Vaea cross 
roads, whence I was aware of white clothes glancing in 
the other long straight radius of the quadrant. 1 turned 
at once to return to the place of tryst; but D. overtook 
me, and almost bore me down, shouting '' Ride, ride! " 
like a hero in a ballad. Lady Margaret and he were 
only come to show the place; they returned, and the 
rest of our party, reinforced by Captain Leigh and Lady 
Jersey, set on for Malie. The delay was due to D.'s in- 
finite precautions, leading them up lanes, by back ways, 
and then down again to the beach road a hundred yards 
further on. 

It was agreed that Lady Jersey existed no more ; she 
was now my cousin Amelia Balfour. That relative and 
I headed the march; she is a charming woman, all of 
us like her extremely after trial on this somewhat rude 
and absurd excursion. And we Amelia'd or Miss Bal- 
four'd her with great but intermittent fidelity. When 
we came to the last village, I sent Henry on ahead to 
warn the King of our approach and amend his discretion, 
if that mJght be. As he left I heard the villagers asking 

or " rebel " king, Lady Jersey's visit, which was of course one of curi- 
osity merely, had to be made unofficially, and so far as might be in- 
cognita. Readers will find an account of it in her own words, Nine- 
teenth Century, Jan., 1893. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

which was the great lady? And a little further, at the 1892 
borders of Malie itself, we found the guard making a ^"^* 
music of bugles and conches. Then I knew the game 
was up and the secret out. A considerable guard of 
honour, mostly children, accompanied us; but for our 
good fortune, we had been looked for earlier, and the 
crowd was gone. 

Dinner at the King's; he asked me to say grace, I 
could think of none — never could; Graham suggested 
Benedictm Benedicat, at which I leaped. We were 
nearly done, when old Popo inflicted the Atua howl (of 
which you have heard already) right at Lady Jersey's 
shoulder. She started in fine style. — *' There," I said, 
" we have been giving you a chapter of Scott, but this 
goes beyond the Waverley Novels." After dinner, kava. 
Lady J. was served before me, and the King drank last; 
it was the least formal kava I ever saw in that house, — 
no names called, no show of ceremony. All my ladies 
are well trained, and when Belle drained her bowl, 
the King was pleased to clap his hands. Then he and 
I must retire for our private interview, to another house. 
He gave me his own staff and made me pass before 
him; and in the interview, which was long and deli- 
cate, he twice called me afioga. Ah, that leaves you 
cold, but I am Samoan enough to have been moved. 
Siisuga is my accepted rank; to be called afioga — 
Heavens ! what an advance — and it leaves Europe cold. 
But it staggered my Henry. The first time it was com- 
plicated " lana susuga ma lana afioga — his excellency 
and his majesty " — the next time plain Majesty. Henry 
then begged to interrupt the interview and tell who he 
was — he is a small family chief in Sawaii, not very 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 small — ''I do not wish the King," says he, *'to think 
^"^' me a boy from Apia." On our return to the palace, we 
separated. I had asked for the ladies to sleep alone — 
that was understood; but that Tusitala — his afioga 
Tusitala — should go out with the other young men, 
and not sleep with the high-born females of his family 




— was a doctrine received with difficulty. Lloyd and 
I had one screen, Graham and Leigh another, and we 
slept well. 

In the morning I was first abroad before dawn ; not 
very long, already there was a stir of birds. A little 
after, I heard singing from the King's chapel — exceed- 
ing good — and went across in the hour when the east 
is yellow and the morning bank is breaking up, to hear 
it nearer. All about the chapel, the guards were posted, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

and all saluted Tusitala. I could not refrain from smil- 1892 
ing: **So there is a place too," I thought, " where sen- ^"S* 
tinels salute me." Mine has been a queer life. 

Breakfast was rather a protracted business. And 
that was scarce over when we were called to the great 
house (now finished — recall your earlier letters) to see 
a royal kava. This function is of rare use; I know 
grown Samoans who have never witnessed it. It is, 
besides, as you are to hear, a piece of prehistoric history, 
crystallised in figures, and the facts largely forgotten; 
an acted hieroglyph. The house is really splendid; in 
the rafters in the midst, two carved and coloured model 
birds are posted ; the only thing of the sort I have ever 
remarked in Samoa, the Samoans being literal observers 
of the second commandment. At one side of the Qgg 
our party sat a = Mataafa, b = Lady J., c. = Belle, 
d = Tusitala, e = Graham, f = Lloyd, g =: Captain 
Leigh, h = Henry, i = Popo. The x's round are the 
high chiefs, each man in his historical position. One 
side of the house is set apart for the King alone; we 
were allowed there as his guests and Henry as our in- 
terpreter. It was a huge trial to the lad, when a speech 
was made to me which he must translate, and I made a 
speech in answer which he had to orate, full breathed, 
to that big circle; he blushed through his dark skin, 
but looked and acted like a gentleman and a young fel- 
low of sense; then the kava came to the King; he 
poured one drop in libation, drank another, and flung 
the remainder outside the house behind him. Next 
came the turn of the old shapeless stone marked T. It 
stands for one of the King's titles, Tamasoalii ; Mataafa 
is Tamasoalii this day, but cannot drink for it; and the 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 Stone must first be washed with water, and then have 
^"^- the bowl emptied on it. Then — the order I cannot 
recall — came the turn of y and z, two orators of the 
name of Malietoa; the first took his kava down plain, 
like an ordinary man; the second must be packed to 
bed under a big sheet of tapa, and be massaged by anx- 
ious assistants and rise on his elbow groaning to drink 
his cup. W., a great hereditary war man, came next; 
five times the cup-bearers marched up and down the 
house and passed the cup on, five times it was filled 
and the General's name and titles heralded at the bowl, 
and five times he refused it (after examination) as too 
small. It is said this commemorates a time when 
Malietoa at the head of his army suffered much for want 
of supplies. Then this same military gentleman must 
drink five cups, one from each of the great names : all 
which took a precious long time. He acted very well, 
haughtily and in a society tone outlining the part. The 
difference was marked when he subsequently made a 
speech in his own character as a plain God-fearing 
chief. A few more high chiefs, then Tusitala; one 
more, and then Lady Jersey ; one more, and then Cap- 
tain Leigh, and so on with the rest of our party — Henry 
of course excepted. You see, in public Lady Jersey 
followed me — just so far was the secret kept. 

Then we came home; Belle, Graham and Lloyd to 
the Chinaman's, I with Lady Jersey, to lunch ; so, sev- 
erally home. Thursday I have forgotten: Saturday, I 
began again on Davie; on Sunday, the Jersey party 
came up to call and carried me to dinner. As I came 
out, to ride home, the search-lights of the Curafoa 
were lightening on the horizon from many miles away, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

and next morning she came in. Tuesday was huge 1892 
fun : a reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there ; "^* 
Lloyd and 1, in the absence of Haggard and Leigh, had 
to play aide-de-camp and host for about twenty minutes, 
and 1 presented the population of Apia at random but 
(luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had 
two middies to lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and 
Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor — very, very nice fellows 
— simple, good and not the least dull) to dinner. 
Saturday, Graham and I lunched on board; Graham, 
Belle, Lloyd dined at the G.'s; and Austin and the whole 
of our servants went with them to an evening enter- 
tainment; the more bold returning by lantern-light. 
Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were off by about half 
past eight, left our horses at a public house, and went 
on board the Curagoa in the wardroom skiff; were en- 
tertained in the wardroom ; thence on deck to the serv- 
ice, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a har- 
monium and excellent choir, and the great ship's com- 
pany joining: on shore in Haggard's big boat to lunch 
with the party. Thence all together to Vailima, where 
we read aloud a Ouida Romance we have been secretly 
writing; in which Haggard was the hero, and each one 
of the authors had to draw a portrait of him or herself 
in a Ouida light. Leigh, Lady J., Fanny, R. L. S., 
Belle and Graham were the authors. 

In the midst of this gay life, I have finally recopied 
two chapters, and drafted for the first time three of 
Davie Balfour. But it is not a life that would continue 
to suit me, and if I have not continued to write to you, 
you will scarce wonder. And to-day we all go down 
again to dinner, and to-morrow they all come up to 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 lunch! The world is too much with us. But it now 
^"^' nears an end, to-day already the Cura^oa has sailed; 
and on Saturday or Sunday Lady Jersey will follow 
them in the mail steamer. I am sending you a wire by 
her hands as far as Sydney, that is to say either you or 
Cassell, about Falesd: I will not allow it to be called 
Uma in book form, that is not the logical name of the 
story. Nor can' I have the marriage contract omitted ; 
and the thing is full of misprints abominable. In the 
picture, Uma is rot; so is the old man and the negro; 
but Wiltshire is splendid, and Case will do. It seems 
badly illuminated, but this may be printing. How have 
I seen this first number } Not through your attention, 
guilty one! Lady Jersey had it, and only mentioned it 
yesterday.^ 

I ought to say how much we all like the Jersey party. 
My boy Henry was enraptured with the manners of the 
Tamaitai Sili (chief lady). Among our other occupa- 
tions, I did a bit of a supposed epic describing our tryst 
at the ford of the Gase-gase; and Belle and I made a lit- 
tle book of caricatures and verses about incidents on 
the visit. 

Tuesday. 

The wild round of gaiety continues. After I had 
written to you yesterday, the brain being wholly ex- 
tinct, I played piquet all morning with Graham. After 
lunch down to call on the U. S. Consul, hurt in a 
steeple-chase; thence back to the new girls' school 
which Lady J. was to open, and where my ladies met 

I I had not cared to send him the story as thus docked and re-chris- 
tened in its serial shape. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

me. Lady J. is really an orator, with a voice of gold; 1892 
the rest of us played our unremarked parts ; missionaries, ^^^' 
Haggard, myself, a Samoan chief, holding forth in turn; 
myself with (at least) a golden brevity. Thence, Fanny, 
Belle, and I to town, to our billiard-room in Haggard's 
back garden, where we found Lloyd, and where 
Graham joined us. The three men first dressed, with 
the ladies in a corner; and then, to leave them a free 
field, we went off to Haggard and Leigh's quarters, 
whereafter all to dinner, where our two parties, a bro- 
ther of Colonel Kitchener's, a passing globe-trotter, and 
Clarke the missionary. A very gay evening, with all 
sorts of chaff and mirth, and a moonlit ride home, 
and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day, we have 
the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass 
the morning dressing ship. 

Thursday, Sept. \st. 

I sit to write to you now, 7.15, all the world in bed Sept. 
except myself, accounted for, and Belle and Graham, 
down at Haggard's at dinner. Not a leaf is stirring 
here; but the moon overhead (now of a good bigness) 
is obscured and partly revealed in a whirling covey of 
thin storm-clouds. By Jove, it blows above. 

From 8 till 11. 15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in 
particular cleaned crystal, my specialty. About 11.30 
the guests began to arrive before I was dressed, and 
between while 1 had written a parody for Lloyd to sing. 
Yesterday, Wednesday, I had to start out about 3 for 
town, had a long interview with the head of the Ger- 
man Firm about some work in my new house, got 
over to Lloyd's billiard-room about six, on the way 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 whither I met Fanny and Belle coming down with one 
Sept. Kitchener, a brother of the Colonel's. Dined in the 
billiard-room, discovered we had forgot to order oat- 
meal; whereupon, in the moonlit evening, I set forth in 
my tropical array, mess jacket and such, to get the oat- 
meal, and meet a young fellow C. — and not a bad 
young fellow either, only an idiot — as drunk as Croe- 
sus. He wept with me, he wept for me; he talked like 
a bad character in an impudently bad farce; I could 
have laughed aloud to hear, and could make you laugh 
by repeating, but laughter was not uppermost. 

This morning at about seven, I set off after the lost 
sheep. I could have no horse; all that could be 
mounted — we have one girth-sore and one dead-lame 
in the establishment — were due at a picnic about 10.30. 
The morning was very wet, and I set off barefoot, with 
my trousers over my knees, and a mackintosh. Pres- 
ently I had to take a side path in the bush; missed it; 
came forth in a great oblong patch of taro solemnly sur- 
rounded by forest — no soul, no sign, no sound — and 
as I stood there at a loss, suddenly between the show- 
ers out broke the note of a harmonium and a woman's 
voice singing an air that I know very well, but have (as 
usual) forgot the name of. T was from a great way 
off, but seemed to fill the world. It was strongly ro- 
mantic, and gave me a point which brought me, by all 
sorts of forest wading, to an open space of palms. 
These were of all ages, but mostly at that age when 
the branches arch from the ground level, range them- 
selves, with leaves exquisitely green. The whole inter- 
space was overgrown with convolvulus, purple, yellow 
and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

floundered aimlessly. The very mountain was invisi- 1892 
ble from here. The rain came and went; now in sun- ^^P** 
lit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle 
of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound 
of man, except the voice which was now silent, and a 
damned pig-fence that headed me off at every corner. 
Do you know barbed wire ? Think of a fence of it 
on rotten posts, and you barefoot. But 1 crossed it at 
last with my heart in my mouth and no harm done. 
Thence at last to C.'s. : no C. Next place I came to 
was in the zone of woods. They offered me a buggy 
and set a black boy to wash my legs and feet. ' ' Washum 
legs belong that fellow white-man " was the command. 
So at last I ran down my son of a gun in the hotel, 
sober, and with no story to tell; penitent, I think. 
Home, by buggy and my poor feet, up three miles of 
root, boulder, gravel and liquid mud, slipping back at 
every step. 

Sunday, Sept. 4th. 

Hope you will be able to read a word of the last, no 
joke writing by a bad lantern with a groggy hand and 
your glasses mislaid. Not that the hand is not better, 
as you see by the absence of the Amanuensis hitherto. 
Mail came Friday, and a communication from yourself 
much more decent than usual, for which I thank you. 
Glad the Wrecker should so hum ; but Lord, what fools 
these mortals be! 

So far yesterday, the citation being wrung from me 
by remembrance of many reviews. I have now re- 
ceived all Falesd, and my admiration for that tale rises, 
I believe it is in some ways my best work; I am pretty 

187 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



1892 sure, at least, I have never done anything better than 
^'P*' Wiltshire. 



Monday, \2th September, 1892. 

On Wednesday the Spinsters of Apia gave a ball to a 
select crowd. Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I rode down, 
met Haggard by the way and joined company with 
him. Dinner with Haggard, and thence to the ball. 
The Chief Justice appeared; it was immediately re- 
marked, and whispered from one to another, that he 
and I had the only red sashes in the room, — and they 
were both of the hue of blood, sir, blood. He shook 
hands with myself and all the members of my family. 
Then the cream came, and I found myself in the same 
set of a quadrille with his honour. We dance here in 
Apia a most fearful and wonderful quadrille, I don't 
know where the devil they fished it from; but it is 
rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words ; 
perhaps it is best defined in Haggard's expression of a 
gambado. When I and my great enemy found our- 
selves involved in this gambol, and crossing hands, 
and kicking up, and being embraced almost in common 
by large and quite respectable females, we — or I — 
tried to preserve some rags of dignity, but not for long. 
The deuce of it is that, personally, I love this man ; his 
eye speaks to me, I am pleased in his society. We ex- 
changed a glance, and then a grin ; the man took me in 
his confidence; and through the remainder of that 
prance, we pranced for each other. Hard to imagine 
any position more ridiculous; a week before he had 
been trying to rake up evidence against me by brow- 
beating and threatening a half-white interpreter; that 

188 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

very morning I had been writing most villainous attacks 1892 
upon him for the Times ; and we meet and smile, and P** 
— damn it! — like each other. I do my best to damn 
the man and drive him from these islands; but the 
weakness endures — I love him. This is a thing I would 
despise in anybody else; but he is so jolly insidious and 
ingratiating! No, sir, I can't dislike him; but if I don't 
make hay of him, it shall not be for want of trying. 

Yesterday, we had two Germans and a young Ameri- 
can boy to lunch ; and in the afternoon, Vailima was in 
a state of siege ; ten white people on the front verandah, 
at least as many brown in the cook house, and count- 
less blacks to see the black boy Arrick. 

Which reminds me, Arrick was sent Friday was a 
week to the German Firm with a note, and was not 
home on time. Lloyd and I were going bedward, it 
was late with a bright moon — ah, poor dog, you know 
no such moons as these! — when home came Arrick 
with his head in a white bandage and his eyes shining. 
He had had a fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; 
many against one, and one with a knife: ''\ knicked 
'em down, three four!" he cried; and had himself to 
be taken to the doctor's and bandaged. Next day, he 
could not work, glory of battle swelled too high in his 
threadpaper breast; he had made a one-stringed harp 
for Austin, borrowed it, came to Fanny's room, and 
sang war-songs and danced a war dance in honour of 
his victory. And it appears, by subsequent advices, 
that it was a serious victory enough ; four of his assail- 
ants went to hospital, and one is thought in danger. 
All Vailima rejoiced at this news. 

Five more chapters of David, 22 to 27, go to Baxter. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 All love affair; seems pretty good to me. Will it do 
Sept. fQj. ^i^g young person ? I don't know : since the Beach, 
I know nothing, except that men are fools and hypo- 
crites, and I know less of them than I was fond enough 
to fancy. 



190 



XXII 



Thursday, i^th September. 

My Dear Colvin, — On Tuesday, we had our young 1892 
adventurer 1 ready, and Fanny, Belle, he and I set out ^^P^ 
about three of a dark, deadly hot, and deeply unwhole- 
some afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a 
pint of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my 
hands, and as Jack had a girth sore and I rode without 
a girth, I might be said to occupy a very unstrategic 
position. On the way down, a little dreary, beastly 
drizzle beginning to come out of the darkness, Fanny 
put up an umbrella, her horse bounded, reared, can- 
noned into me, cannoned into Belle and the lad, and 
bolted for home. It really might and ought to have 
been an Ai catastrophe; but nothing happened beyond 
Fanny's nerves being a good deal shattered ; of course, 
she could not tell what had happened to us until she 
got her horse mastered. 

Next day. Haggard went off to the Commission and 
left us in charge of his house; all our people came down 
in wreaths of flowers ; we had a boat for them ; Hag- 
gard had a flag in the Commission boat for us; and 
when at last the steamer turned up, the young adven- 
turer was carried on board in great style, with a new 

1 Austin Strong, on his way to school in California. 
191 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 watch and chain, and about three pound ten of tips, and 
^^P^' five big baskets of fruit as free-will offerings to the cap- 
tain. Captain Morse had us all to lunch; champagne 
flowed; so did compliments; and I did the affable 
celebrity life-sized. It made a great send-off for the 
young adventurer. As the boat drew off, he was 
standing at the head of the gangway, supported by 
three handsome ladies — one of them a real full-blown 
beauty, Madame Green, the singer — and looking very 
engaging himself, between smiles and tears. Not that 
he cried in public. 

My, but we were a tired crowd ! However it is always 
a blessing to get home, and this time it was a sort of 
wonder to ourselves that we got back alive. Casual- 
ties: Fanny's back jarred, horse incident; Belle, bad 
headache, tears and champagne; self, idiocy, cham- 
pagne, fatigue ; Lloyd, ditto, ditto. As for the adven- 
turer, I believe he will have a delightful voyage for his 
little start in life. But there is always something touch- 
ing in a mite's first launch. 

Date unknown. 

I am now well on with the third part of the Debacle. 
The two first I liked much; the second completely 
knocking me ; so far as it has gone, this third part ap- 
pears the ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten 
what he has to say — he reminds me of an M. P. But 
Sedan was really great, and I will pick no holes. The 
batteries under fire, the red-cross folk, the county 
charge — perhaps, above all. Major Bouroche and the 
operations, all beyond discussion; and every word 
about the Emperor splendid. 

192 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

September ^otb. 

David Balfour done, and its author along with it, or 1892 
nearly so. Strange to think of even our doctor here re- ^^P** 
peating his nonsense about debilitating climate. Why, 
the work I have been doing the last twelve months, in 
one continuous spate, mostly with annoying interrup- 
tions and without any collapse to mention, would be 
incredible in Norway. But I have broken down now, 
and will do nothing as long as I possibly can. With 
David Balfour I am very well pleased; in fact these 
labours of the last year — I mean Falesd and D. B., not 
Samoa, of course — seem to me to be nearer what I 
mean than anything I have ever done; nearer what I 
mean by fiction; the nearest thing before was Kid- 
napped. I am not forgetting the Master of Ballantrae, 
but that lacked all pleasurableness, and hence was im- 
perfect in essence. So you see, if I am a little tired, I 
do not repent. 

The third part of the Dthdcle may be all very fine ; 
but I cannot read it. It suffers from impaired vitality, 
and uncertain aim; two deadly sicknesses. 

Vital — that's what I am at, first: wholly vital, with 
a buoyancy of life. Then lyrical, if it may be, and pic- 
turesque, always with an epic value of scenes, so that 
the figures remain in the mind's eye for ever. 

October 8tb. 
Suppose you sent us some of the catalogues of the Oct. 
parties what vends statues ? I don't want colossal Her- 
culeses, but about quarter size and less. If the cata- 
logues were illustrated it would probably be found a 
help to weak memories. These may be found to alle- 

193 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 viate spare moments, when we sometimes amuse our- 
^^*' selves by thinking how fine we shall make the palace 
if we do not go pop. Perhaps in the same way it 
might amuse you to send us any pattern of wall paper 
that might strike you as cheap, pretty and suitable for 
a room in a hot and extremely bright climate. It should 
be borne in mind that our climate can be extremely dark 
too. Our sitting-room is to be in varnished wood. 
The room I have particularly in mind is a sort of bed and 
sitting-room, pretty large, lit on three sides, and the 
colour in favour of its proprietor at present is a topazy 
yellow. But then with what colour to relieve it ? For 
a little work-room of my own at the back, I should 
rather like to see some patterns of unglossy — well, I'll 
be hanged if I can describe this red — it's not Turkish 
and it's not Roman and it's not Indian, but it seems to 
partake of the two last and yet it can't be either of them 
because it ought to be able to go with vermilion. Ah, 
what a tangled web we weave — anyway, with what 
brains you have left choose me and send me some — 
many — patterns of this exact shade. 

A few days ago it was Haggard's birthday and we 
had him and his cousin to dinner — bless me if I ever 
told you of his cousin ! — he is here anyway, and a fine, 
pleasing specimen, so that we have concluded (after 
our own happy experience) that the climate of Samoa 
must be favourable to cousins.^ Then we went out on 
the verandah in a lovely moonlight, drinking port, hear- 
ing the cousin play and sing, till presently we were 

1 The reference is to the writer's maternal cousin, Mr. Graham Bal- 
four (Samoice, '' Pelema"), who during these months and afterwards 
was an inmate of the home at Vailima, 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

informed that our boys had got up a siva in Lafaele's 1892 
house to which we were invited. It was entirely their ^^' 
own idea. The house, you must understand, is one- 
half floored, and one-half bare earth, and the dais stands 
a little over knee high above the level of the soil. The 
dais was the stage, with three footlights. We audience 
sat on mats on the floor, and the cook and three of our 
work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two ladies, took 
their places behind the footlights and began a topical 
Vailima song. The burden was of course that of a Sa- 
moan popular song about a white man who objects to 
all that he sees in Samoa. And there was of course a 
special verse for each one of the party — Lloyd was 
called the dancing man (practically the Chief's hand- 
some son) of Vailima; he was also, in his character I 
suppose of overseer compared to a policeman — Belle 
had that day been the almoner in a semi-comic distribu- 
tion of wedding rings and thimbles (bought cheap at 
an auction) to the whole plantation company, fitting a 
ring on every man's finger, and a ring and a thimble 
on both the women's. This was very much in charac- 
ter with her native name Teuila, the adorner of the 
ugly — so of course this was the point of her verse and 
at a given moment all the performers displayed the 
rings upon their fingers. Pelema (the cousin — our 
cousin) was described as watching from the house and 
whenever he saw any boy not doing anything, running 
and doing it himself. Fanny's verse was less intelligi- 
ble, but it was accompanied in the dance with a pan- 
tomime of terror well-fitted to call up her haunting, 
indefatigable and diminutive presence in a blue gown. 



195 



XXIII 

Vailima, October 28th, 1892. 

g My dear Colvin, — This is very late to begin the 

Oct. monthly budget, but I have a good excuse this time, 
for I have had a very annoying fever with symptoms of 
sore arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece 
of business which suffered no delay or idleness. . . . 
The consequence of all this was that my fever got very 
much worse and your letter has not been hitherto writ- 
ten. But, my dear fellow, do compare these little larky 
fevers with the fine, healthy, prostrating colds of the 
dear old dead days at home. Here was I, in the middle 
of a pretty bad one, and I was able to put it in my 
pocket, and go down day after day, and attend to and 
put my strength into this beastly business. Do you 
see me doing that with a catarrh ? And if I had done 
so, what would have been the result ? 

Last night, about four o'clock. Belle and I set off to 
Apia, whither my mother had preceded us. She was 
at the Mission ; we went to Haggard's. There we had 
to wait the most unconscionable time for dinner. I do 
not wish to speak lightly of the Amanuensis, who is 
unavoidably present, but I may at least say for myself 
that I was as cross as two sticks. Dinner came at last, 
we had the tinned soup which is usually the piece de 

196 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

resistance in the halls of Haggard and we pitched into 1892 
it. Followed an excellent salad of tomatoes and cray- ^^^' 
fish, a good Indian curry, a tender joint of beef, a dish 
of pigeons, a pudding, cheese and coffee. I was so 
over-eaten after this ''hunger and burst" that I could 
scarcely move; and it was my sad fate that night in the 
character of the local author to eloquute before the pub- 
lic — ''Mr. Stevenson will read a selection from his 
own works " — a degrading picture. I had determined 
to read them the account of the hurricane, I do not know 
if I told you that my book has never turned up here, or 
rather only one copy has, and that in the unfriendly 
hands of . It has therefore only been seen by ene- 
mies; and this combination of mystery and evil report 
has been greatly envenomed by some ill-judged news- 
paper articles from the States. Altogether this specimen 
was listened to with a good deal of uncomfortable ex- 
pectation on the part of the Germans, and when it was 
over was applauded with unmistakable relief. The 
public hall where these revels came off, seems to be un- 
lucky for me; I never go there but to some stone- 
breaking job. Last time it was the public meeting of 
which I must have written you; this time it was this 
uneasy but not on the whole unsuccessful experiment. 
Belle, my mother and I rode home about midnight in a 
fine display of lightning and witch-fires. My mother 
is absent, so that I may dare to say that she struck me 
as voluble. The Amanuensis did not strike me the 
same way, she was probably thinking, but it was really 
rather a weird business, and I saw what I have never 
seen before, the witch-fires gathered into little bright 
blue points almost as bright as a night-light. 

197 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



Saturday. 



1892 jhis is the day that should bring your letter; it is 
grey and cloudy and windless; thunder rolls in the 
mountain ; it is a quarter past six, and I am alone, sir, 
alone in this workman's house, Belle and Lloyd having 
been down all yesterday to meet the steamer; they 
were scarce gone with most of the horses and all the 
saddles than there began a perfect picnic of the sick 
and maim ; lopu with a bad foot, Faauma with a bad 
shoulder, Fanny with yellow spots. It was at first 
proposed to carry all these to the doctor, particularly 
Faauma, whose shoulder bore an appearance of erysipe- 
las, that sent the amateur below. No horses, no sad- 
dle. Now I had my horse and I could borrow Lafaele's 
saddle; and if I went alone I could do a job that had 
long been waiting; and that was to interview the doc- 
tor on another matter. Off I set in a hazy moonlight 
night; windless, like to-day; the thunder rolling in the 
mountain, as to-day; in the still groves, these little 
mushroom lamps glowing blue and steady, singly or in 
pairs. Well, I had my interview, said everything as I 
had meant, and with just the result I hoped for. The 
doctor and I drank beer together and discussed Ger- 
man literature until nine, and we parted the best of 
friends. I got home to a silent house of sleepers, only 
Fanny awaiting me; we talked awhile, in whispers, on 
the interview ; then, I got a lantern and went across to 
the workman's house, now empty and silent, myself 
sole occupant. So to bed, prodigious tired but mighty 
content with my night's work. And to-day, with a 
headache and a chill, have written you this page, while 
my new novel waits. Of this I will tell you nothing, 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

except the various names under consideration. First, 1892 
it oughit to be called — but of course that is impos- 
sible — 

Braxfield. ^ 

Then it is to be called either 

Weir of Hermistofij 

The Lord-Justice Clerk, 

The Two Kir sties of the Cauldstaneslapy 

or 

The Four Black Brothers. 

Characters : 

Adam Weir, Lord-Justice Clerk, called Lord Hermis- 

ton. 
Archie, his son. 

Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston. 
Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother. 
Kirstie Elliott, his daughter. 
Jim, . 
Gib, . 
Hb . . !>his sons. 

& 
Dandie, 
Patrick Innes, a young advocate. 
The Lord-Justice General. 

Scene, about Hermiston in the Lammermuirs and in 
Edinburgh. Temp. 18 12. So you see you are to have 
another holiday from copra! The rain begins softly on 
the iron roof, and I will do the reverse and — dry up. 

1 Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the " Hanging Judge" (1722- 
1 799)- This historical personage furnished the conception of the chief 
character, but by no means the details or incidents of the story, which 
is indeed dated some years after his death. 

199 



Nov. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Sunday. 

5892 Yours with the diplomatic private opinion received. 
It is just what I should have supposed, (^a m'est bien 
tgal. — The name is to be 

The Lord-Justice Clerk. 
None others are genuine. Unless it be ^ 
Lord-Justice Clerk Hermiston, 

Nov. 2nd. 
On Saturday we expected Captain Morse of the Ala- 
meda to come up to lunch, and on Friday with genuine 
South Sea hospitality had a pig killed. On the Satur- 
day morning no pig. Some of the boys seemed to give 
a doubtful account of themselves ; our next neighbour 
below in the wood is a bad fellow and very intimate 
with some of our boys, for whom his confounded house 
is like a fly-paper for flies. To add to all this, there 
was on the Saturday a great public presentation of food 
to the King and Parliament men, an occasion on which 
it is almost dignified for a Samoan to steal anything, 
and entirely dignified for him to steal a pig. 

(The Amanuensis went to the talolo, as it is called, and saw some- 
thing so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the letter to tell it. The 
different villagers came in in bands — led by the maid of the village, 
followed by the young warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some 
three thousand people are said to have assembled. The men wore 
nothing but magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of leaves, and were 
oiled and glistening in the sunlight. One band had no maid but was 
led by a tiny child of about five — a serious little creature clad in a rib- 
bon of grass and a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps 
in front of the warriors, like a little kid leading a band of lions, a. m.) 

1 The name ultimately chosen was IVeir of Hermiston; for the 
sequel, so far as concerns this story, see the Epilogue to this volume. 

200 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

The A. M. being done, I go on again. All this made 
it very possible that even if none of our boys had stolen 
the pig, some of them might know the thief. Besides 
the theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a guest, 
had something of the nature of an insult and " my face" 
in native phrase ''was ashamed." Accordingly, we 
determined to hold a bed of justice. It was done last 
night after dinner. I sat at the head of the table, Gra- 
ham on my right hand, Henry Simele at my left, Lloyd 
behind him. The house company sat on the floor 
around the walls — twelve all told. I am described as 
looking as like Braxfield as I could manage with my 
appearance; Graham, who is of a severe countenance, 
looked like Rhadamanthus; Lloyd was hideous to the 
view; and Simele had all the fine solemnity of a Sa- 
moan chief. The proceedings opened by my deliver- 
ing a Samoan prayer, which may be translated thus — 
''Our God, look down upon us and shine into our 
hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that each 
one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity." 
— Then, beginning with Simele, every one came up to 
the table, laid his hand on the Bible, and repeated 
clause by clause after me the following oath — I fear it 
may sound even comic in English, but it is a very 
pretty piece of Samoan, and struck direct at the most 
lively superstitions of the race. "This is the Holy 
Bible here that I am touching. Behold me, O God! If 
1 know who it was that took away the pig, or the place 
to which it was taken, or have heard anything relating 
to it, and shall not declare the same — be made an end 
of by God this life of mine! " They all took it with so 
much seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if 



1892 
Nov. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1892 they were not innocent they would make invaluable 
^°^' witnesses. I was so far impressed by their bearing 

that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely 

solemn scene came to an end. 

Sunday, Nov. 6tJj. 

Here is a long story to go back upon, and I wonder 
if I have either time or patience for the task ? 

Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and 
proposed to Henry that Faale would make a good wife 
for him. I wish I had put this down when it was 
fresher in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. 
My gentleman would not tell if I were on or not. *' I 
do not know yet; I will tell you next week. May I 
tell the sister of my father.? No, better not, tell her 
when it is done." — *' But will not your family be angry 
if you marry without asking them ?" — " My village.? 
What does my village want ? Mats ! " I said I thought 
the girl would grow up to have a great deal of sense, 
and my gentleman flew out upon me; she had sense 
now, he said. 

Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and 
presently after heard it was an English war-ship. 
Graham and I set off at once, and as soon as we met 
any townsfolk they began crying to me that I was to 
be arrested. It was the Fossische Zeitung article which 
had been quoted in a paper. Went on board and saw 
Captain Bourke, he did not even know — not even 
guess — why he was here; having been sent off by 
cablegram from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship 
that takes this off Europewards may bring his orders 
and our news. But which is it to be ? Heads or tails } 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I 1892 
should prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a ^°^' 
German oificialdom, and should probably have to leave 
sponte meo, which is only less picturesque and more 
expensive. 

Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever 
may be in store for me. No time even to sign this 
lame letter. 



203 



XXIV 



Dec. 1st. 



1892 My dear Colvin, — Another grimy little odd and end 
of paper, for which you shall be this month repaid in 
kind, and serve you jolly well right. . . . The new 
house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is 
better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for 
it. For all which mercies, etc. I must have made 
close on ;^4,ooo this year all told; but what is not so 
pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them. 
I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the 
cards, all summer, and came very near to taking in sail, 
but I live here so entirely on credit, that I determined 
to hang on. 

Dec. 1st. 

I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and 
did not think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I 
was briefed to defend a political prisoner before the 
Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of that for 
a vicissitude ? 

Dec. ^rd. 

Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cas- 
sells had decided to print The Bottle Imp along with 

204 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Falesd, I was too much disappointed to answer. The 
Bottle Imp was the piece de resistance for my volume, 
Island Nights' Entertainments. However, that volume 
might have never got done; and I send you two others 
in case they should be in time. 

First have the Beach of Falesd. 

Then a fresh false title : Island Nights' Entertain- 
ments; and then: 

The Bottle Imp : a cue from an old melodrama. 

The Isle of Voices. 

The Waif Woman : a cue from a saga. 

Of course these two others are not up to the mark of 
The Bottle Imp; but they each have a certain merit, and 
they fit in style. By saying " a cue from an old melo- 
drama" after the B. I., you can get rid of my note. If 
this is in time, it will be splendid, and will make quite 
a volume. 

Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the 
whole volume /. N. E. — though the Beach of Falesd is 
the child of a quite different inspiration. They all have 
a queer realism, even the most extravagant, even the 
Isle of Voices; the manners are exact. 

Should they come too late, have them type-written, 
and return to me here the type-written copies. 

Sunday, Dec. 4th. 
3rd Start, — But now more humbly, and with the aid 
of an Amanuensis. First one word about page 2. My 
wife protests against the Waif Woman and I am in- 
structed to report the same to you ^ 

1 This tale was withheld from the volume accordingly. 
205 



I«92 

Dec. 



Dec 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Dec. ^th. 

1892 A horrid alarm arises that our October mail was 
burned crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful 
long letter — I am sure it was beautiful though I remem- 
ber nothing about it — and 1 must say I think it serves 
you properly well. That 1 should continue writing to 
you at such length is simply a vicious habit for which I 
blush. At the same time, please communicate at once 
with Charles Baxter whether you have or have not re- 
ceived a letter posted here Oct. 12th, as he is going to 
cable me the fate of my mail. 

Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have 
taken my book like angels, and the result is that Lloyd 
and I were down there at dinner on Saturday, where 
we partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct 
forms of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, 
I must say there was not a shadow of a headache the 
next morning. I seem to have done as well as my 
neighbours, for I hear one of the clerks expressed the 
next morning a gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson 
stood his drink so well. It is a strange thing that any 
race can still find joy in such athletic exercises. I may 
remark in passing that the mail is due and you have 
had far more than you deserve. R. L. S. 



206 



XXV 



January, 1893. 
My dear Colvin, — You are properly paid at last, and 1893 
it is like you will have but a shadow of a letter. I have ^^"' 
been pretty thoroughly out of kilter, first a fever that 
would neither come on nor go off, then acute dyspep- 
sia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering 
between the waking state and one of nightmare. Why 
the devil does no one send me Atalanta ? ^ And why 
are there no proofs of D. Balfour ? Sure I should have 
had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and 
it would be all for the advantage of the Atalantans. I 
have written to Cassell & Co. (matter of Falesd) ''you 
will please arrange with him " (meaning you). '* What 
he may decide I shall abide." So consider your hand 
free, and act for me without fear or favour. I am 
greatly pleased with the illustrations. It is very strange 
to a South-Seayer to see Hawaiian women dressed like 
Samoans, but I guess that's all one to you in Middlesex. 
It's about the same as if London city men were shown 
going to the Stock Exchange as pifferari, but no mat- 
ter, none will sleep worse for it. I have accepted Cas- 
sell's proposal as an amendment to one of mine; that 
D. B. is to be brought out first under the title Catriona 

1 The magazine in which Catriona first appeared in this country, 
under the title David Balfour. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 without pictures ; and when the hour strikes, Kidnapped 
^^"' and Catriona are to form vols. i. and 11. of the heavily 
illustrated ''Adventures of David Balfour" at 7s. 6d. 
each, sold separately. 

's letter was vastly sly and dry and shy. I am 

not afraid now. Two attempts have been made, both 
have failed, and I imagine these failures strengthen me. 
Above all this is true of the last, where my ^Yeak point 
was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only 
force can dislodge me, for public opinion is wholly on 
my side. All races and degrees are united in heart-felt 
opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The news of the 
fighting was of no concern to mortal man ; it was made 
much of because men love talk of battles, and because 
the government pray God daily for some scandal not 
their own; but it was only a brisk episode in a clan 
fight which has grown apparently endemic in the west 
of Tutuila. At the best it was a twopenny affair, and 
never occupied my mind five minutes. 

I am so weary of reports that are without foundation 
and threats that go without fulfilment, and so much 
occupied besides by the raging troubles of my own 
wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have 
been in literature. With incredible labour, I have re- 
written the First Chapter of the Justice Clerk ; it took me 
about ten days, and requires another athletic dressing 
after all. And that is my story for the month. The 
rest is grunting and grutching. 

Consideranda for The Beach : — 

I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you } 

II. Whether to call the whole volume " Island Nights' 
Entertainments " } 

208 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

III. Whether, having waited so long, it would not 1893 
be better to give me another mail, in case I could add •^^"* 
another member to the volume and a little better justify 
the name ? 

If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What 
annoyed me about the use of the Bottle Imp, was that I 
had always meant it for the centre-piece of a volume of 
Mdrchen which I was slowly to elaborate. You al- 
ways had an idea that I depreciated the B. I. ; I can't 
think wherefore; I always particularly liked it — one of 
my best works, and ill to equal; and that was why I 
loved to keep it in portfolio till I had time to grow up 
to some other fruit of the same venue. However, that 
is disposed of now, and we must just do the best we 
can. 

I am not aware that there is anything to add, the 
weather is hellish, waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul 
fiend's own weather, following on a week of expur- 
gated heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. 
I write in the upper floor of my new house, of which I 
will send you some day a plan to measure. 'Tis an el- 
egant structure, surely, and the proid of me oi. Was 
asked to pay for it just now, and genteelly refused, and 
then agreed, in view of general good-will, to pay a 
half of what is still due. 

2/^tli) January^ 1893. 
This ought to have gone last mail and was forgotten. 
My best excuse is that I was engaged in starting an in- 
fluenza, to which class of exploit our household has 
been since then entirely dedicated. We had eight cases, 
one of them very bad, and one — mine — complicated 

209 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 with my old friend Bluidy Jack.^ Luckily neither Fan- 
■^^"* ny, Lloyd or Belle took the confounded thing, and they 
were able to run the household and nurse the sick to 
admiration. 

Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps 
the prettiest performance was that of our excellent 
Henry Simele, or, as we sometimes call him, Davy Bal- 
four. Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest 
Samoan recoils from emptying slops as you v/ould from 
cheating at cards; now the last nights of our bad time 
when we had seven down together, it was enough to 
have made anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going 
the rounds with a slop-bucket and going inside the 
mosquito net of each of the sick, Protestant and Cath- 
olic alike, to pray with them. 

I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alle- 
viation and began a new story. This 1 am writing by 
dictation, and really think it is an art 1 can manage to 
acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just like 
a school-treat to me and the Amanuensis bears up ex- 
traordinar'. The story is to be called St. Ives, 1 give 
you your choice whether or not it should bear the sub- 
title, ''Experiences of a French prisoner in England." 
We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this 
cursed mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It 
looks to me very like as if St. Ives would be ready be- 
fore any of the others, but you know me and how im- 
possible it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her 
head quite turned and believes herself to be the author 
of this novel (and is to some extent)— and as the creature ( ! ) 
has not been wholly useless in the matter (i told you so ! 

1 Hemorrhage from the lungs. 
210 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

A. M.), I propose to foster her vanity by a little commem- 1895 
oration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. •'^"" 
Yves — he Englishes his name to St. Ives during his es- 
cape. It is my idea to get a ring made which shall 
either represent Anne or A. S. Y. A., of course, would 
be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite 
stone anyway and was my father's before me. But 
what would the ex-Slade professor do about the letter 
Y.^ Or suppose he took the other version, how would 
he meet the case of the two N.'s ? These things are be- 
yond my knowledge, which it would perhaps be more 
descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the matter in 
the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to 
hear your views. I shall tell you on some other occasion 
and when the a. m. is out of hearing how very much I 
propose to invest in this testimonial; but I may as well 
inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir, 
damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by 
praise, not pudding, flattery and not coins! I shall 
send you when the time is ripe a ring to measure by. 

To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were 
almost wholly recovered, Henry lay down to influenza 
on his own account. He is but just better and it looks 
as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As 
for me, I am all right, though I wcvs reduced to dictating 
Anne in the deaf and dumb alphabet, which I think 
you will admit is a comble. 

Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that 
so much of my purpose has come off, and Cedarcrantz 
and Pilsach are sacked. The rest of it has all gone to 
water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his plenitude 
of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 the Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may 
^^"' succeed, and I suppose it will. It is none the less for 
that expensive, harsh, unpopular and unsettling. I am 
young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether 
eject and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. 
Success in that field appears to be the organisation of 
failure enlivened with defamation of character; and, 
much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true 
phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse 
and Blackwell and my hot water with a dose of good 
Glenlivat. 

Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have 
had the whole of our new house varnished, and it looks 
beautiful. I wish you could see the hall ; poor room, it 
had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent visi- 
tation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and 
when we get the furniture, and the pictures, and what 
is so very much more decorative, the picture frames, 
will look sublime. 

Jan. ^oth. 

I have written to Charles, asking for Rolandson's 
Syntax and Dance of Death out of our house, and beg- 
ging for anything about fashions and manners (fashions 
particularly) for 18 14. Can you help } Both the Justice 
Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I got 
into St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for 
the other. There is a kind of fancy list of Chaps, of St. 
Ives. (It begins in Edin^ Castle.) i. Story of a lion 
rampant (that was a toy he had made, and given to a 
girl visitor). 11. Story of a pair of scissors, iii. Stives 
receives a bundle of money, iv. St. Ives is shown a 

212 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

house. V. The Escape, vi. The Cottage (Swanston 1893 
College). VII. The Hen-house, viii. Three is company ^^"' 
and four none. ix. The Drovers, x. The Great North 
Road. XI. Burchell Fenn. xii. The covered cart. xiii. 
The doctor, xiv. The Luddites, xv. Set a thief to 
catch a thief, xvi. M. le Comte de Keroualle (his uncle, 
the rich imigre, whom he finds murdered), xvii. The 
cousins, xviii. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. xix. A meeting 
at the Ship, Dover, xx. Diane, xxi. The Duke's Pre- 
judices. XXII. The False Messenger, xxiii. The gar- 
dener's ladder, xxiv. The officers, xxv. Trouble with 
the Duke. xxvi. Fouquet again, xxvii. The Aeronaut. 
XXVIII. The True-blooded Yankee, xxix. In France. I 
don't know where to stop. Apropos, I want a book 
about Paris, and the first return of the emigres and all 
up to the Cent Jotirs : d'ye ken anything in my way } 
I want in particular to know about them and the Napo- 
leonic functionaries and officers, and to get the colour 
and some vital details of the business of exchange of de- 
partments from one side to the other.^ Ten chapters 
are drafted, and viii. recopied by me, but will want an- 
other dressing for luck. It is merely a story of adven- 
ture, rambling along ; but that is perhaps the guard that 
"sets my genius best," as Alan might have said. I 
wish I could feel as easy about the other! But there, 
all novels arc a heavy burthen while they are doing, and 
a sensible disappointment when they are done. 

For God's sake, let me have a copy of the new Ger- 
man Samoa White book. 

R. L. S. 

iVitrolle's Memoirs and the "1814" and "1815" of M. Henri 
Houssaye were sent accordingly. 

213 



Feb. 



XXVI 

At Sea, s.s. Mariposa, 
Feb. 19th, '93. 

1^893 My dear Colvin, — You will see from this heading 
that I am not dead yet nor likely to be. I was pretty 
considerably out of sorts, and that is indeed one reason 
why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month's 
lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five 
weeks before we get home. We shall stay between 
two and three in Sydney. Already, though we only 
sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny 
ate a whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower 
of hot cakes. Belle and 1 floored another hen betwixt the 
pair of us, and I shall be no sooner done with the pres- 
ent amanuensing racket than I shall put myself outside 
a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying 
of consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. 
In the matter of David, I have never yet received my 
proofs at all, but shall certainly wait for your sugges- 
tions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and I 
confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. 
This is doubtless what you complain of Indeed, I 
placed my single reliance on Miss Grant. If she couldn't 
ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there. 

About Island Nights' Entertainments all you say is 
highly satisfactory. Go in and win. 

214 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



The extracts from the Times I really cannot trust my- 1893 



self to comment upon. They were infernally satisfac- 
tory ; so, and perhaps still more so, was a letter I had 
at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time 
as I go through Auckland, 1 am going to see Sir George 
Grey. 

Now I really think that's all the business. I have 
been rather sick and have had two small hemorrhages, 
but the second I believe to have been accidental. No 
good denying that this annoys, because it do. How- 
ever, you must expect influenza to leave some harm, 
and my spirits, appetite, peace on earth and goodwill 
to men are all on a rising market. During the last week 
the Amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I 
took up, pitched into, and about one half demolished 
another tale, once intended to be called The Pearl Fisher, 
but now razeed and called The Schooner Farallone.^ 
We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at sunrise, 
and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed 
again. The manager of the German Firm, (Oh, strange, 
changed days!) danced attendance upon us all morning; 
his boat conveyed us to and from the steamer. 

Feb. 2 1 St. 

All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a 
day, but afoot again and jolly ; Fanny enormously bet- 
tered by the voyage ; 1 have been as jolly as a sand-boy 
as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits opposite to me 
writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have 
just supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and 
so left her in good hands. You should hear me at table 

1 Ultimately The Ebb Tide. 
215 



Feb. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 with the Ulster purser and a little punning microscopist 

^^^' called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse Boswel- 

lising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of 

jests that would pay here, I observed, **Boswell is 

Barred during this cruise." 

We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. 
All goes well with the trio. Both the ladies are hang- 
ing round a beau — the same — that I unearthed for them : 
I am general provider, and especially great in the beaux 
business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny yesterday 
afternoon, fell asleep over them in the saloon — and the 
whole ship seems to have been down beholding me. 
After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whisky punch and 
a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; 
a recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and 
had to go to the saloon clock for the hour — no sign of 
dawn — all heaven grey rainy fog. Have just had break- 
fast, written up one letter, register and close this. 



216 



Feb. 



XXVII 

Bad pen, bad ink, S. S. Mariposa, at Sea. 

bad light, bad Apia due bjy dajpbreak to- 

blotting-paper. morrow, 9 p. m. 

My dear Colvin, — Have had an amusing but tragic 1893 
holiday, from which we return in disarray. Fanny quite 
sick, but I think slowly and steadily mending; Belle in 
a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem 
calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds 
out of which I at last succeeded in cooking up a fine 
pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in a perfectly air- 
less state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy. 
Poor Fanny had very little fun of her visit, having been 
most of the time on a diet of maltine and slops — and 
this while the rest of us were rioting on oysters and 
mushrooms. Belle's only devil in the hedge was the 
dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, likewise at a 
sort of artistic club ; made speeches at both, and may 
therefore be said to have been like Saint Paul, all things 
to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which 
I meant to have enclosed in this. . . . Had some splen- 
did photos taken, likewise a medallion by a French 
sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far as 
Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George 
Grey ; what a wonderful old historic figure to be walk- 

217 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 ing on your arm and recalling ancient events and in- 
^^^' stances ! It makes a man small, and yet the extent to 
which he approved what I had done — or rather have 
tried to do — encouraged me. Sir George is an expert 
at least, he knows these races: he is not a small em- 
ploye with an ink-pot and a Whittaker. 

Take it for all in all, it was huge fun : even Fanny had 
some lively sport at the beginning; Belle and I all 
through. We got Fanny a dress on the sly, gaudy 
black velvet and Duchesse lace. And alas! she was 
only able to wear it once. But we'll hope to see more 
of it at Samoa; it really is lovely. Both dames are 
royally outfitted in silk stockings, etc. We return, as 
from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am 
now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I 
should change. Slovenly youth, all right — not slovenly 
age. So really now I am pretty spruce; always a white 
shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk socks, oh, a great 
sight! — No more possible, R. L. S. 



218 



XXVIII 

April, 1893. 

I. Slip 3.1 Davie would be attracted into a similar 1893 
dialect, as he is later — ^. g., with Doig, chapter xix. "^^P"^' 
This is truly Scottish. 

4, to lightly ; correct; '* to lightly " is a good regular 
Scots verb. 

15. See Allan Ramsay's works. 

15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with 
which I am trying to draw the character of Preston- 
grange. Tis a most curious thing to render that kind, 
insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to 
risk my effect. And till the day he died, Davie was 
never sure of what P. was after. Not only so ; very 
often P. didn't know himself There was an element 
of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being 
determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. 
He hoped his Barbara would bring him to her feet, be- 
sides, and make him manageable. That was why he 
sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot 
know; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method 
condemns me to give only the outside both of Preston- 
grange and his policy. 

1 These notes are in reply to a set of queries and suggestions as to 
points that seem to need clearing in the tale of Catriona, as first pub- 
lished in Atalanta. 

219 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 — I'll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me 
^P"^' they seem a part of the story, which is historical, after 

all. 
-- I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when 

or where to say so ? I will try. 

— 20, Dean. I'll try and make that plainer. 

Chap, XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I 
could get the pair — No, can't be. 

— XIV. All right, will abridge. 

-- XV. I'd have to put a note to every word; and he 
who can't read Scots can never enjoy Tod Lapraik. 

— XVII. Quite right. I can make this plainer, and 
will. 

— XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the 
broken back of my story ; some business briefly trans- 
acted, I am leaping for Barbara's apron-strings. 

Slip 57. Quite right again ; I shall make it plain. 

Cbap. XX. I shall make all these points clear. About 
Lady Prestongrange (not Lady Grant, only Miss Grant, 
my dear, though Lady Prestongrange, quoth the dom- 
inie) I am taken with your idea of her death, and have 
a good mind to substitute a featureless aunt. 

Slip 78. I don't see how to lessen this effect. There 
is really not much said of it; and I know Catriona did 
it. But I'll try. 

--89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. 
You see C.'s dialect is not wholly a bed of roses. If 
only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try for another ex- 
pression. 

The end. I shall try to work it over. James was at 
Dunkirk ordering post-horses for his own retreat. Cat- 
riona did have her suspicions aroused by the letter, and. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

careless gentleman, I told you so — or she did at least. — 1893 
Yes, the blood money. — I am bothered about the port- ^P"^* 
manteau; it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; 
the rape of the pockmantie is historic. . . . 

To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty 
piece of workmanship. David himself I refuse to dis- 
cuss; he is. The Lord Advocate I think a strong 
sketch of a very difficult character, James More, suffi- 
cient; and the two girls very pleasing creatures. But 
oh, dear me, I came near losing my heart to Barbara! I 
am not quite so constant as David, and even he — well, 
he didn't know it, anyway ! Tod Lapraik is a piece of 
living Scots : if I had never writ anything but that and 
Thr awn Janet, still I'd have been a writer. The defects 
of D. B. are inherent, I fear. But on the whole, I am 
far indeed from being displeased with the tailie. They 
want more Alan ? Well, they can't get it. 

I found my fame much grown on this return to civili- 
sation. Digito monstrari is a new experience; people 
all looked at me in the streets in Sydney; and it was 
very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white chief 
in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, 
either an ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of 
matters. If I lived in an atmosphere of adulation, I 
should end by kicking against the pricks. Oh, my 
beautiful forest, oh, my beautiful, shining, windy house, 
what a joy it was to behold them again ! No chance 
to take myself too seriously here. 

The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be 
attended to, and the small time left to transact it in. I 
mean from Alan's danger of arrest. But I have just 
seen my way out, I do believe. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Easter Sunday. 
1893 I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the chap- 
P ter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me 
always of the essence of the story, which is the story 
of a came celebre ; moreover, they are the justification 
of my inventions; if these men went so far (granting 
Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so 
much further ? But of course I knew they were a diffi- 
culty; determined to carry them through in a conver- 
sation ; approached this (it seems) with cowardly anx- 
iety ; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left 
all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not 
wonder but what I'll end by re-writing it. It is not 
the technicalities that shocked you, it was my bad art. 
It is very strange that x. should be so good a chapter 
and IX. and xi. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as 
if XI. also would have to be re-formed. If x. had not 
cheered me up, I should be in doleful dumps, but x. is 
alive anyway, and life is all in all. 

Thursday, April ^th. 

Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not well, 
and we are miserably anxious. . . . 

Friday, jth. 
I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at 
once. A crape has been removed from the day for all 
of us. To make things better, the morning is ah ! such 
a morning as you have never seen ; heaven upon earth 
for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of unimag- 
inable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment 
only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the.rich 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

piping of a single bird. You can't conceive what a re- 1893 
lief this is; it seems a new world. She has such ex- ^ 
traordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the 
best. I am as tired as man can be. This is a great trial 
to a family, and I thank God it seems as if ours was going 
to bear it well. And oh ! if it only lets up, it will be but a 
pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd ; Fanny, as 
per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked 
and bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; But- 
ler, prostrate with a bad leg. Eh, what a faim'ly ! 

Sunday. 

Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional 
thunder and lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my 
invalids are really on the mend. The rain roars like the 
sea ; in the sound of it there is a strange and ominous 
suggestion of an approaching tramp ; something name- 
less and measureless seems to draw near, and strikes 
me cold, and yet is welcome. I lie quiet in bed to-day, 
and think of the universe with a good deal of equanim- 
ity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it ; 
the, fracas with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; 
I am like my grandfather in that; and so many years in 
these still islands has ingrained the sentiment perhaps. 
Here are no trains, only men pacing barefoot. No carts 
or carriages ; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes among 
the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robus- 
tious rain takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls. 

April i6th. 

Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn ; 
the wailings of a crushed worm ; matter in which neither 

223 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 you nor I can take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I 
April, believe all right now ; I too am mending, though I have 
suffered from crushed wormery, which is not good for 
the body, and damnation to the soul. 1 feel to-night a 
baseless anxiety to write a lovely poem a propos des 
hottes de ma grandmere. I see I am idiotic. I'll try 
the poem. 

The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I 
am still, however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse ; if I 
cared to encourage her — but I have not the time, and 
anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny 
enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like 
the God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this 
seems to hold at the Antipodes. There is here some 
odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of politics ; we 
wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide 
won't take the C. J. ship, unless the islands are dis- 
armed; and that England hesitates and holds off. By 
my own idea, strongly corroborated by Sir George, I am 
writing no more letters. But I have put as many irons 
in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. 
It did not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk 
to take! What an expense to incur! And for how poor 
a gain ! Apart from the treachery of it. My dear fellow, 
politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used to think 
meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the 
politician ! 

Thursday. 
A general, steady advance; Fanny really quite chipper 
and jolly — self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on 

224 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

forests that are to fall — and my finger on the axe, 1893 
which wants stoning. -^P"^- 

Saturday, 22. 
Still all for the best ; but I am having a heart-breaking 
Ximo, owQX David. I have nearly all corrected. But have 
to consider The Heather on Fire, The Wood by Silver- 
mitts, and the last chapter. They all seem to me off 
colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No proof 
has been sent of the title, contents, or dedication. 



225 



XXIX 

2^th April. 

1893 My dear Colvin, — To-day early I sent down to Maben 
^P"^' (Secretary of State) an offer to bring up people from 
Malie, keep them in my house, and bring them down 
day by day for so long as the negotiation should 
last.^ I have a favourable answer so far. This I would 
not have tried, had not old Sir George Grey put me on 
my mettle; ''Never despair, "was his word; and 'M am 
one of the few people who have lived long enough to 
see how true that is." Well, thereupon I plunged in; 
and the thing may do me great harm, but yet 1 do not 
think so — for I think jealousy will prevent the trial be- 
ing made. And at any rate it is another chance for this 
distracted archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique 
of fools. If, by the gift of God, I can do — I am allowed 
to try to do — and succeed : but no, the prospect is too 
bright to be entertained. 

To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and 
then by the new wood paths. One led us to a beau- 
tiful clearing, with four native houses ; taro, yams, and 
the like, excellently planted, and old Folau — ''the Sa- 

1 The outbreak of hostilities was at this date imminent between 
Mulinuu (the party of Laupepa, recognised and supported by the Three 
Powers), and Malie (the party of Mataafa). 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

moan Jew" — sitting and whistling there in his new- 1893 
found and well-deserved well-being. It was a good ^P"^* 
sight to see a Samoan thus before the world. Further 
up, on our way home, we saw the world clear, and the 
wide die of the shadow lying broad ; we came but a 
little further, and found in the borders of the bush a 
Banyan. It must have been 150 feet in height; the 
trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great space; above 
that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns 
and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread 
of the boughs rose against the bright west, and sent 
their shadow miles to the eastward. I have not often 
seen anything more satisfying than this vast vegetable. 

Sunday. 

A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, 
save when, from far down below us in the woods, 
comes up the crepitation of the little wooden drum that 
beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now and 
again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, 
and is gone. — The King of Samoa has refused my in- 
tercession between him and Mataafa; and I do not deny 
this is a good riddance to me of a difficult business, in 
which I might very well have failed. What else is to 
be done for these silly folks ? 

May \2th. 

And this is where I had got to, before the mail ar- May. 
rives with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter from 
yourself Sir, that is the sort of letter I want ! Now, 
I'll make my little proposal.^ I will accept Child's Play 

1 For a volume of selected Essays, containing the pick of Virginibus 
Puerisque, Memories and Portraits, and Across the Plains. 

227 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 and Pan's Pipes. Then I want Pastoral, The Manse, 
^^^' The Islet, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter 
and beginning at i . Then the portrait of Robert Hunter, 
beginning ''Whether he was originally big or little," 
and ending ** fearless and gentle." So much for Mem. 
and Portraits. Beggars, sections i. and 11., Random 
Memories 11., and Lantern Bearers; I'm agreeable. 
These are my selections. I don't know about Pulvis et 
Umbra either, but must leave that to you. But just 
what you please. 

About Davie I elaborately wrote last time, but still 
Davie is not done; I am grinding singly at The Ebb 
Tide, as we now call the Farallone; the most of it will 
go this mail. About the following, let there be no mis- 
take: I will not write the abstract cA Kidnapped ; write 
it who will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a 
clever fellow to write both argument and story; I am 
not, et je me recuse. 

We call it The Ebb Tide: a Trio and Quartette; but 
that secondary name you may strike out if it seems dull 
to you. The book, however, falls in two halves, when 
the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want 
to know, and expect to finish on I suppose no or so; 
but it goes slowly, as you may judge from the fact that 
this three weeks past, I have only struggled from p. 58 
to p. 82 : twenty-four pages, et encore sure to be re- 
written, in twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; 
not much Waverley Novels about this ! 

May \6th. 

I believe it will be ten chapters of The Ebb Tide that 
go to you; the whole thing should be completed in I 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

fancy twelve; and the end will follow punctually next 1895 
mail. It is my great wish that this might get into The ^^^* 
Illustrated London News for Gordon Browne to illus- 
trate. For whom, in case he should get the job, I give 
you a few notes. A purao is a tree giving something 
like a fig with flowers. He will find some photographs 
of an old marine curiosity shop in my collection, which 
may help him. Attwater's settlement is to be entirely 
overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see photo- 
graphs of Fakarava: the verandahs of the house are 12 ft. 
wide. Don't let him forget the Figure Head, for which 
I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands just clear 
of the palms on the crest of the beach at the head of the 
pier ; the flag-staff not far off; the pier he will understand 
is .perhaps three feet above high water, not more at any 
price. The sailors of the Farattone are to be dressed like 
white sailors of course. For other things, 1 remit this 
excellent artist to my photographs. 

I can't think what to say about the tale, but it seems 
to me to go off with a considerable bang ; in fact, to be 
an extraordinary work : but whether popular! Attwater 
is a no end of a courageous attempt, 1 think you will ad- 
mit ; how far successful is another affair. If my island 
ain't a thing of beauty, I'll be damned. Please observe 
Wiseman and Wishart; for incidental grimness, they 
strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe the Captain 
and Adar; 1 think that knocks spots. In short, as you 
see, I'm a trifle vainglorious. But oh, it has been such 
a grind ! The devil himself would allow a man to brag 
a little after such a crucifixion! And indeed I'm only 
bragging for a change before I return to the darned 
thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke 

229 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 down. I break down at every paragraph, I may ob- 
^^^' serve; and lie here and sweat, till I can get one sen- 
tence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after 
having worked so easily for so long! Did ever anybody 
see such a story of four characters.^ 

Later, 2.30. 

It may interest you to know that I am entirely tapu, 
and live apart in my chambers like a caged beast. Lloyd 
has a bad cold, and Graham and Belle are getting it. 
Accordingly, I dwell here without the light of any human 
countenance or voice, and strap away at The Ebb Tide 
until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can still come, 
but is gone to glory now, or to her garden. Page 88 
is done, and must be done over again to-morrow, and 
I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can't work 
on along when he has nothing else on earth to do! 
But I have ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the 
bush presently to refresh the machine ; then back to a 
lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce in this hand 
of fate ; for I think another cold just now would just about 
do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two last. 

May i8th. 
My progress is crabwise, and I fear only ix. chapters 
will be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88 again, and 
with half an idea of going back again to 85. We shall 
see when we come to read : I used to regard reading as 
a pleasure in my old light days. All the house are down 
with the influenza in a body, except Fanny and me. 
The influenza appears to become endemic here, but it 
has always been a scourge in the islands. Witness the 

230 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

beginning of The Ebb Tide, which was observed long 1893 
before the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by ^^' 
such Napoleonic conquests. I am now of course ''quite 
a recluse," and it is very stale, and there is no amanuen- 
sis to carry me over my mail, to which I shall have to 
devote many hours that would have been more usefully 
devoted to The Ebb Tide. For you know you can dic- 
tate at all hours of the day and at any odd moment; 
but to sit down and write with your red right hand is 
a very different matter. 

May 20th. 

Well, I believe I've about finished the thing, I mean 
as far as the mail is to take it. Chapter x. is now in 
Lloyd's hands for remarks, and extends in its present 
form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of May, I see by look- 
ing back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time; so that 
I have made 1 1 pages in nine livelong days. Well! up a 
high hill he heaved a huge round stone. But this Flaubert 
business must be resisted in the premises. Or is it the 
result of influenza ? God forbid. Fanny is down now, 
and the last link that bound me to my fellow men is 
severed. I sit up here, and write, and read Renan's 
Origines, which is certainly devilish interesting; I read 
his Nero yesterday, it is very good, oh, very good! 
But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such 
a piece of character painting, excellent; but his method 
sheer lunacy. You can see him take up the block 
which he had just rejected, and make of it the corner- 
stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and 
the result so little like history that one almost blames 
oneself for wasting time. But the time is not wasted; 

231 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 the conspectus is always good, and the blur that remains 
^^^* on the mind is probably just enough. I have been en- 
chanted with the unveiling of Revelations. And how 
picturesque that return of the false Nero ! The Apostle 
John is rather discredited. And to think how one had 
read the thing so often, and never understood the at- 
tacks upon St. Paul ! I remember when I was a child, 
and we came to the Four Beasts that were all over eyes, 
the sickening terror with which I was filled. If that 
was Heaven, what, in the name of Davie Jones and the 
aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be ? Take it for all in 
all, U Antechrut is worth reading. The Histoire d' Is- 
rael did not surprise me much ; I had read those Hebrew 
sources with more intelligence than the New Testament, 
. and was quite prepared to admire Ahab and Jezebel, 
etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been rather a hero of 
mine; I mean since the years of discretion. 

May,2\st. 

And here I am back again on p. 85 ! the last chapter 
demanding an entire revision, which accordingly it is to 
get. And where my mail is to come in, God knows ! 
This forced, violent, alembicated style is most abhorrent 
to me; it can't be helped; the note was struck years 
ago on the Janet NicoU, and has to be maintained some- 
how ; and I can only hope the intrinsic horror and pathos, 
and a kind of fierce glow of colour there is to it, and 
the surely remarkable wealth of striking incident, may 
guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon Browne is 
to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs of 
Papeete. But mind, the three waifs were never in the 
town; only on the beach and in the calaboose. By 

232 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

George, but it's a good thing to illustrate for a man like 1893 
that! Fanny is all right again. False alarm! I was ^^^* 
down yesterday afternoon at Papauta, and heard much 
growling of war, and the delightful news that the C. J. 
and the President are going to run away from Mulinuu 
and take refuge in the Tivoli hotel. 

2^rd. Mail day. 

And lots of pleasures before me, no doubt! Among 
others the attempt to extract an answer from be- 
fore mail time, which may succeed or may not. 

The Ebb Tide, all but (I take it) fifteen pages, is now 
in your hands — possibly only about eleven pp. It is 
hard to say. But there it is, and you can do your best 
with it. Personally, 1 believe I would in this case make 
even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne and copious 
illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have finished 
with it ; then I go next to D. Balfour, and get the proofs 
ready : a nasty job for me, as you know. And then } 
Well, perhaps I'll take a go at the family history. I 
think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. 
And then, I suppose. Weir of Hermiston, but it may be 
anything. I am discontented with The Ebb Tide, na- 
turally; there seems such a veil of words over it; and I 
like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes 
one has a longing for full colour and there comes the 
veil again. The Young Chevalier is in very full colour, 
and 1 fear it for that reason. — Ever, 

R. L. S. 



233 



XXX 



2^th May. 

^^93 My dear Colvin — Still grinding at Chap, xl I began 

^^' many days ago on p. 93, and am still on p. 93, which 

is exhilarating, but the thing takes shape all the same 

and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of it. 

For xii. is only a footnote ad explicandum. 

June the ist. 

June. Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it 
over and condemned it. 

10 a. m. 

I have worked up again to 97, but how ? The deuce 
fly away with literature, for the basest sport in creation. 
But it's got to come straight! and if possible, so that I 
may finish D, Balfour in time for the same mail. What 
a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert outdone. Belle, 
Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga down the 
coast; to be absent a week or so: this leaves Fanny, 
me, and who seems a nice, kindly fellow. 

June 2nd. 

I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, oversmoking, and 
unremunerative overwork. Last night, I went to bed 

234 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

by seven; woke up again about ten for a minute to find 1893 
myself light-headed and altogether off my legs ; went J'^"®* 
to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly fit. I have 
crippled on to p. loi, but I haven't read it yet, so do 
not boast. What kills me is the frame of mind of one 
of the characters ; I cannot get it through. Of course 
that does not interfere with my total inability to write; 
so that yesterday I was a living half-hour upon a single 
clause and have a gallery of variants that would surprise 
you. And this sort of trouble (which I cannot avoid) 
unfortunately produces nothing when done but alembi- 
cation and the far-fetched. Well, read it with mercy ! 

8 a. m. 

Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the chapter 
practically done at last. But Lord ! it has been a busi- 
ness. 

June yd, 8.15. 
The draft is finished, the end of Chapter xii. and the 
tale, and I have only eight pages wieder^uarbeiten. 
This is just a cry of joy in passing. 

10.30. 
Knocked out of time. Did loi and 102. Alas, no 
more to-day, as I have to go down town to a meeting. 
Just as well though, as my thumb is about done up. 

Sunday, June ^th . 

Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday, 12.30, 
in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse 
and set off. A boy opens my gate for me. ''Sleep 
and long life! A blessing on your journey," says he. 

235 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 And I reply ''Sleep, long life! A blessing on the 
J""^- house! " Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, nar- 
row, winding way, that seems almost as if it was lead- 
ing you into Lyonesse, and you might see the head and 
shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the 
road I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic 
interview with him ; he wants me to pay taxes on the 
new house; I am informed I should not till next year; 
and we part, re infecta, he promising to bring me de- 
cisions, I assuring him that, if I find any favouritism, he 
will find me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the isl- 
and. Then I have a talk with an old servant by the 
wayside. A little further I pass two children coming 
up. '' Love! " say I, " are you two chiefly proceeding 
inland } " and they say, "Love! yes! " and the interest- 
ing ceremony is finished. Down to the post office, 
where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the 
White Book, just arrived per Upolu, having gone the 
wrong way round, by Australia; also six copies of Isl- 
and Nights' Entertainments. Some of Weatherall's 
illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! 
I did say it was " shallow," but, oh, dear, not so shal- 
low as that a man could stand up in it ! I had still an 
hour to wait for my meeting, so Postmaster Davis let 
me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer in, 
and read A Gentleman of France. Have you seen it 
coming out in Longman's? My dear Colvin, 'tis the 
most exquisite pleasure ; a real chivalrous yarn, like the 
Dumas' and yet unlike. Thereafter to the meeting of 
the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I 
have to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be 
paid at the doorstep. 

236 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Monday, ^th. 

Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Browne, secretary 1893 
to the Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made J""®* 
the war in the Western Islands and was tried for his 
life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long, important 
talk about Samoa. Oh, if I could only talk to the 
home men! But what would it matter? none of 
them know, none of them care. If we could only 
have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would 
hear of no more troubles in Samoa. That is what 
we want; a man that knows and likes the natives, 
qui paye de sa personne, and is not afraid of hang- 
ing when necessary. We don't want bland Swedish 
humbugs, and fussy, footering German barons. 
That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be 
in it. 

I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly 
wrong, and shall have to rewrite them. This tale 
is devilish, and Chapter xi. the worst of the lot. The 
truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; 
but it's nearly done, and shall go somehow according 
to promise. I go against all my gods, and say it 
is not worth while to massacre yourself over the last 
few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will 
quite justly tear to bits. As for D. B., no hope, I 
fear, this mail, but we '11 see what the afternoon does 
for me. 

Well, it's done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last 
finished, and 1 have put away thirty-two pages of chips, 
and have spent thirteen days about as nearly in Hell as 
a man could expect to live through. It's done, and of 
course it ain't worth while, and who cares ? There it 

237 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



1893 is, and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and 
^""^' as grimy, and as hateful. 





SACRED 


TO 


THE MEMORY 




OF 


J- 


L HUISH, 


BORN 


1856, AT HACKNEY, 




LONDON, 


Accidentally killed upon this 
Island, 


loth 


September, 1889. 



Tuesday, 6. 

I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from 
the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was 
standing out on the little verandah in front of my room 
this morning, and there went through me or over me a 
wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. 
I literally staggered. And then the explanation came, 
and I knew I had found a frame of mind and body that 
belonged to Scotland, and particularly to the neighbour- 
hood of Callander. Very odd these identities of sensa- 
tion, and the world of connotations implied; highland 
huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, 
and wet clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the 
past, and that indescribable bite of the whole thing at a 
man's heart, which is — or rather lies at the bottom of 
— a story. 

238 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurevilly-an. I 1893 
am. I have a great delight in his Norman stories. Do ^""®* 
you know the Chevalier des Touches and V EnsorceUe ? 
They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the past. 
But I was rather thinking just now of Le Rideau Cra- 
moisiy and its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the 
dark street, the home-going in the inn yard, and the 
red blind illuminated. Without doubt, there was an 
identity of sensation ; one of those conjunctions in life 
that had filled Barbey full to the brim^ and permanently 
bent his memory. 

I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all 
good ; and who can tell me } and why should I wish 
to know } In so little a while, I, and the English lan- 
guage, and the bones of my descendants, will have 
ceased to be a memory! And yet — and yet — one 
would like to leave an image for a few years upon men's 
minds — for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind, 
consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the 
excruciating Ebb Tide. Adieu. 

What do you suppose should be done with The Ebb 
Tide ? It would make a volume of 200 pp. ; on the 
other hand, I might likely have some more stories soon ; 
The Owl, Death in the Pot, The Sleeper Awakened; all 
these are possible. The Owl might be half as long; 
The Sleeper Awakened, ditto; Death in the Pot a deal 
shorter, I believe. Then there's the Go-Between, which 
is not impossible altogether. The Owl, The Sleeper 
Awakened, and the Go-Between end reasonably well; 
Death in the Pot is an ungodly massacre. Oh, well. 
The Owl only ends well in so far as some lovers come 

239 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 together, and nobody is killed at the moment, but you 
June, j^now they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.^ 

Friday, ^th. 

Well, the mail is in ; no Blue-book, depressing letter 
from C. ; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast 
masses of Romeike ; they are going to war now ; and 
what will that lead to ? and what has driven them to it 
but the persistent misconduct of these two officials ? I 
know I ought to rewrite the end of this bluidy Ebb 
Tide: well, I can't. C est plus fort que mot; it has 
to go the way it is, and be jowned to it! From what 
I make out of the reviews,^ I think it would be better 
not to republish The Ebb Tide : but keep it for other 
tales, if they should turn up. Very amusing how the 
reviews pick out one story and damn the rest! and it is 
always a different one. Be sure you send me the article 
from Le Temps. 

Saturday, X'jth, 
Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole chap- 
ter of my grandfather, and read it to-night ; it was on 
the whole much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain't 
bad myself 'Tis a third writing, but it wants a fourth. 
By next mail, I believe I might send you 3 chapters. 
That is to say Family Annals, The Service of the North- 
ern Lights, and The Building of the Bell Rock. Pos- 

1 The OwZ was to be a Breton story of the Revolution; Death in the 
Pot, a tale of the Sta. Lucia mountains in California; the scene of 
The Go-Between was laid in the Pacific Islands; of The Sleeper Awa- 
kened, I know nothing. 

2 Of Island Nights' Entertainments. 
240 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

sibly even 4 — A Houseful of Boys. I could finish my 1893 
grandfather very easy now ; my father and Uncle Alan J""^* 
stop the way. I propose to call the book: Northern 
Lights : Memoirs of a Family of Engineers. I tell you, 
it is going to be a good book. My idea in sending ms. 
would be to get it set up; two proofs to me, one to 
Professor Swan, Ardchapel, Helensburgh — mark it pri- 
vate and confidential — one to yourself; and come on 
with criticism ! But I'll have to see. The total plan of 
the book is this — 

I. Domestic Annals. 

II. The Service of the Northern Lights. 

III. The Building of the Bell Rock. 

IV. A Houseful of Boys (or, the There will be an Intro- 

Family in Baxter's Place). ^"'^^^^^ "The Surname 
^j ,. -. T- • of Stevenson" which 

V. Education of an Enejineer. 

° has proved a mighty 

VI. The Grandfather. queer subject of in- 

VII. Alan Stevenson. quiry. But, Lord! if I 
VIII. Thomas Stevenson. were among libraries. 

Sunday, i^th. 
I shall put in this envelope the end of the ever-to-be- 
execrated Ebb Tide, or Stevenson's Blooming Error. 
Also, a paper apart for David Balfour. The slips must 
go in another enclosure, I suspect, owing to their beastly 
bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of work off my 
mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little 
more of David, yet it was plainly to be seen it was im- 
possible. All the points indicated by you have been 
brought out; but to rewrite the end, in my present 
state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would have 

241 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grand- 
June, father is good enough for me, these days. I do not 
work any less ; on the whole, if anything, a little more. 
But it is different. 

The slips go to you in four packets ; I hope they are 
what they should be, but do not think so. I am at a 
pitch of discontent with fiction in all its form — or my 
forms — that prevents me being able to be even inter- 
ested. I have had to stop all drink ; smoking I am try- 
ing to stop also. It annoys me dreadfully : and yet if I 
take a glass of claret, 1 have a headache the next day ! 
Oh, and a good headache too; none of your trifles. 
Well, sir, here's to you, and farewell. — Yours ever, 

R. L. S. 



242 



XXXI 

Saturday, 24th {?)June. 

My dear Colvin, — Yesterday morning, after a day of 1893 
absolute temperance, I awoke to the worst headache I J""^* 
had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was said fare- 
well to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are 
soon to be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing im- 
patience, for war to be declared, or to blow finally off, 
living in the meanwhile in a kind of children's hour of 
firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king 
seen at night galloping up our road upon unknown er- 
rands and covering his face as he passes our cook ; Ma- 
taafa daily surrounded (when he awakes) with fresh 
''white man's boxes " (query, ammunition ?) and pro- 
fessing to be quite ignorant of where they come from ; 
marches of bodies of men across the island ; conceal- 
ment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of 
different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag- 
tag as the devil himself could not unwind. 

Wednesday, 28th June. 

Yesterday it rained with but little intermission, but I 
was jealous of news. Graham and I got into the sad- 
dle about I o'clock and off down to town. In town, 
there was nothing but rumours going; in the night 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 drums had been beat, the men had run to arms on 
Ju"e- Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm proved 
false. There were no signs of any gathering in Apia 
proper, and the Secretary of State had no news to give. 
I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then the 
temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford 
and see the Mataafa villages, where we heard there was 
more afoot. Off we rode. When we came to Vaimu- 
su, the houses were very full of men, but all seemingly 
unarmed. Immediately beyond is that river over which 
we passed in our scamper with Lady Jersey ; it was all 
solitary. Three hundred yards beyond is a second ford ; 
and there — I came face to face with war. Under the 
trees on the further bank sat a picket of seven men with 
Winchesters ; their faces bright, their eyes ardent. As 
we came up, they did not speak or move; only their 
eyes followed us. The horses drank, and we passed 
the ford. ''Talofa!" I said, and the commandant of 
the picket said '* Talofa; " and then, when we were al- 
most by, remembered himself and asked where we 
were going. " To Faamuina," I said, and we rode on. 
Every house by the wayside was crowded with armed 
men. There was the European house of a Chinaman 
on the right-hand side : a flag of truce flying over the 
gate — indeed we saw three of these in what little way 
we penetrated into Mataafa's lines — all the foreigners 
trying to protect their goods ; and the Chinaman's veran- 
dah overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. 
By the way we met a party of about ten or a dozen 
marching with their guns and cartridge-belts, and the 
cheerful alacrity and brightness of their looks set my 
head turning with envy and sympathy. Arrived at 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Vaiusu, the houses about the malae (village green) were 1893 
thronged with men, all armed. On the outside of the ■'""®* 
council-house (which was all full within) there stood an 
orator; he had his back turned to his audience, and 
seemed to address the world at large; all the time we 
were there his strong voice continued unabated, and I 
heard snatches of political wisdom rising and falling. 

The house of Faamuina stands on a knoll in the malae. 
Thither we mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, 
and we went in. Faamuina was there himself, his wife 
Pelepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants; and 
here again was this exulting spectacle as of people on 
their marriage day. Faamuina (when I last saw him) 
was an elderly, limping gentleman, with much of the 
debility of age ; it was a bright-eyed boy that greeted 
me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge- 
belts. We stayed but a little while to smoke a sului ; 
I would not have kava made, as I thought my escapade 
was already dangerous (perhaps even blameworthy) 
enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, 
and on coming to the ford, the commandant came and 
asked me if there were many on the other side. '* Very 
many," said I; not that I knew, but I would not lead 
them on the ice. ''That is well ! " said he, and the little 
picket laughed aloud as we splashed into the river. 
We returned to Apia, through Apia, and out to wind- 
ward as far as Vaiala, where the word went that the 
men of the Vaimanoaga had assembled. We met two 
boys carrying pigs, and saw six young men busy cook- 
ing in a cook-house; but no sign of an assembly; no 
arms, no blackened faces. I forgot! As we turned to 
leave Faamuina's, there ran forward a man with his 

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1893 face blackened, and the back of his lava-lava girded up 
J""^* so as to show his tattooed hips naked ; he leaped be- 
fore us, cut a wonderful caper, and flung his knife high 
in the air, and caught it. It was strangely savage and 
fantastic and high-spirited. I have seen a child doing 
the same antics long before in a dance, so that it is 
plainly an accepted solemnity. I should say that for 
weeks the children have been playing with spears. Up 
by the plantation I took a short cut, which shall never 
be repeated, through grass and weeds over the horses' 
heads and among rolling stones; I thought we should 
have left a horse there, but fortune favoured us. So 
home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a 
bowl of kava and dinner. But the impression on our 
. minds was extraordinary ; the sight of that picket at the 
ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls in my head ; 
the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered 
like a stallion. 

It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and 
do nothing; I do not know if I can stand it out. But 
you see, I may be of use to these poor people, if I keep 
quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a bad job 
of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you; 
and it is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about 
one hour up ; can I go back to my old grandpapa, and 
men sitting with Winchesters in my mind's eye ? No ; 
war is a huge entratnement; there is no other tempta- 
tion to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, 
we had been about five hours in the saddle, mostly 
riding hard ; and we came home like schoolboys, with 
such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a bright- 
ness of eye, as you could have lit a candle at ! 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Thursday, 29th. 
I had two priests to luncheon yesterday; the Bishop 1893 
and Pere Remy. They were very pleasant, and quite J""^* 
clean too, which has been known sometimes not to be 
— even with bishops. Monseigneur is not unimposing; 
with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks 
splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads 
came up one after another and kneeled before him in the 
big hall, and kissed his ring, it did me good for a piece 
of pageantry. Remy is very engaging; he is a little, 
nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful of 
laughter and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, 
and our luncheon party went off merrily — far more 
merrily than many a German spread, though with so 
much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a 
complete ignorance of the Protestant that 1 would scarce 
have imagined, he related to us (as news) little stories 
from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His 
comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought ir- 
reverent. "Ahf tlconnaissatt sonmondejalleif "II 
etaitfin, notre Seigneur ! " etc. 

Friday. 
Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the Interna- 
tional. Heard there about the huge folly of the hour, 
all the Mulinuu ammunition having been yesterday 
marched openly to vaults in Matafele ; and this morning, 
on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and humili- 
atingly disinterred and marched back again. People 
spoke of it with a kind of shrill note that did not quite 
satisfy me. They seemed not quite well at ease. 
Luncheon over, we rode out on the Malie road. All 

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1893 was quiet in Vaiusu, and when we got to the second 
June. ^Qj.^^ ^i^gj ii^QYQ ^as no picket — which was just what 
Belle had come to sketch. On through quite empty 
roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to be seen; 
and at last a drum and a penny whistle playing in Vai- 
usu, and a cricket match on the malae! Went up to 
Faamuina's; he is a trifle uneasy, though he gives us 
kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that 
he has an engagement with the Chief Justice at half- 
past two to sell a piece of land. Is this the reason why 
war has disappeared } We ride back, stopping to 
sketch here and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I 
ride on to Public Hall Committee and pass an hour 
with my committees very heavily. To the hotel to 
dinner, then to the ball, and home by eleven, very 
tired. At the ball I heard some news, of how the 
chief of Letonu said that I was the source of all this 
trouble, and should be punished, and my family as 
well. This, and the rudeness of the man at the ford of 
the Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that 
Faamuina, as he approached the first ford, was spoken 
to by a girl, and immediately said good-bye and 
plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there 
was a war party out from Mulinuu ; and a little further 
on, as we stopped to sketch a flag of truce, the beating 
of drums and the sound of a bugle from that direction 
startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe Muli- 
nuu is (at least at present) incapable of any act of of- 
fence. One good job, these threats to my home and 
family take away all my childish temptation to go out 
and fight. Our force must be here, to protect our- 
selves. I see panic rising among the whites; I hear 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

the shrill note of it in their voices, and they talk already 1893 
about a refuge on the war ships. There are two here, ^""^* 
both German ; and the Orlando is expected presently. 

Sunday, pthjulf. 
Well, the war has at last begun. For four or five 
days, Apia has been filled by these poor children with 
their faces blacked, and the red handkerchief about 
their brows, that makes the Malietoa uniform, and the 
boats have been coming in from the windward, some 
of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board — 
the bugle always ill-played — and a sort of jester leap- 
ing and capering on the sparred nose of the boat, and 
the whole crew uttering from time to time a kind of 
menacing ululation. Friday they marched out to the 
bush ; and yesterday morning we heard that some had 
returned to their houses for the night, as they found it 
"so uncomfortable." After dinner a messenger came 
up to me with a note, that the wounded were arriving at 
the Mission House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and 
rode off with a lantern; it was a fine starry night, 
though pretty cold. We left the lantern at Tanuga- 
manono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, 
and myself, in a strange state of flusteration ; my own 
excitement was gloomy and (1 may say) truculent; 
others appeared imbecile ; some sullen. The best place 
in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame- 
house it was, with a big table in the middle for opera- 
tions, and ten Samoans, each with an average of four 
sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke was 
there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled an- 
gel, showed herself a real trump ; the nice, clean, Ger- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 man orderlies in their white uniforms looked and meant 
^""^* business. (I hear a fine story of Miss Large — a cast- 
iron teetotaller — going to the public-house for a bottle 
of brandy.) 

The doctors were not there when I arrived ; but pre- 
sently it was observed that one of the men was going 
cold. He was a magnificent Samoan, very dark, with 
a noble aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, 
and was surrounded by seven people, fondling his 
limbs as he lay : he was shot through both lungs. And 
an orderly was sent to the town for the (German naval) 
doctors, who were dining there. Meantime I found an 
errand of my own. Both Clarke and Miss Large ex- 
pressed a wish to have the public hall, of which I am 
chairman, and I set off down town, and woke people 
out of their beds, and got a committee together, and 
(with a great deal of difficulty from one man, whom 
we finally overwhelmed) got the public hall for them. 
Bar the one man, the committee was splendid, and 
agreed in a moment to share the expense if the share- 
holders object. Back to the hospital about 1 1.30; found 
the German doctors there. Two men were going now, 
one that was shot in the bowels — he was dying rather 
hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum, silent, 
with contorted face. The chief, shot through the lungs, 
was lying on one side, awaiting the last angel ; his family 
held his hands and legs; they were all speechless, only 
one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and ** keened" 
for the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went 
home, and to bed about two a. m. What actually passed 
seems undiscoverable ; but the Mataafas were surely 
driven back out of Vaitele ; that is a blow to them, and 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

the resistance was far greater than had been anticipated 1893 
— which is a blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indi- ^^^^' 
cate a long and bloody war. 

Funk's house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with 
wounded ; many dead bodies were brought in ; I hear 
with certainty of five, wrapped in mats ; and a pastor 
goes to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Lau- 
pepas brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the 
great horror and consternation of the native mind, one 
proved to be a girl, and was identified as that of a Tau- 
pou — or Maid of the Village — from Savaii. I hear this 
morning, with great relief, that it has been returned to 
Malie, wrapped in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, 
and with an apologetic embassy. This could easily 
happen. The girl was of course attending on her father 
with ammunition, and got shot; her hair was cut short 
to make her father's war head-dress — even as our own 
Sina's is at this moment; and the decollator was prob- 
ably, in his red flurry of fight, wholly unconscious of 
her sex. I am sorry for him in the future. He must 
make up his mind to many bitter jests — perhaps to ven- 
geance. But what an end to one chosen for her beauty 
and, in the time of peace, watched over by trusty crones 
and hunchbacks! 

Evening. 

Can I write or not ? I played lawn tennis in the morn- 
ing, and after lunch down with Graham to Apia. Ulu, 
he that was shot in the lungs, still lives ; he that was 
shot in the bowels is gone to his fathers, poor, fierce 
child ! I was able to be of some very small help, and 
in the way of helping myself to information, to prove 
myself a mere gazer at meteors. But there seems 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 no doubt the Mataafas for the time are scattered; the 
^^^^' most of our friends are involved in this disaster, and 
Mataafa himself — who might have swept the islands a 
few months ago — for him to fall so poorly, doubles my 
regret. They say the Taupou had a gun and fired ; prob- 
ably an excuse manufactured ex post facto, I go down 
to-morrow at 12, to stay the afternoon, and help Miss 
Large. In the hospital to-day, when I first entered it, 
there were no attendants ; only the wounded and their 
friends, all equally sleeping and their heads poised upon 
the wooden pillows. There is a pretty enough boy 
here, slightly wounded, whose fate is to be envied : two 
girls, and one of the most beautiful, with beaming eyes, 
tend him and sleep upon his pillow. In the other cor- 
ner, another young man, very patient and brave, lies 
wholly deserted. Yet he seems to me far the better of 
the two ; but not so pretty ! Heavens, what a difference 
that makes; in our not very well proportioned bodies 
and our finely hideous faces, the i-32nd — rather the 
I -64th — this way or that! Sixteen heads in all at Mu- 
linuu. I am so stiff I can scarce move without a howl. 

Monday, loth. 
Some news that Mataafa is gone to Savaii by way of 
Manono; this may mean a great deal more warfaring, 
and no great issue. (When Sosimo came in this morn- 
ing with my breakfast he had to lift me up. It is no 
joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right arm 
in a sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust busi- 
ness this is! On the 28th, if Mataafa had moved, he 
could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and I fear 
he is now only the stick of a rocket. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Wednesday, 12th. 

No more political news; but many rumours. The 1893 
government troops are off to Manono ; no word of Ma- ^"^^' 
taafa. Oh, there is a passage in my mother's letter 
which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next Christmas 
you are coming ? or the Christmas after ? This is most 
important, and must be understood at once. If it is 
next Christmas, I could not go to Ceylon, for lack of 
gold, and you would have to adopt one of the following 
alternatives: ist, either come straight on here and pass 
a month with us; 'tis the rainy season, but we have 
often lovely weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I 
will meet you there. Hawaii is only a week's sail from 
S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on the 
heaving ocean ; and the steamers run once a fortnight, 
so that you could turn round ; and you could thus pass 
a day or two in the States — a fortnight even — and still 
see me. But I have sworn to take no further excursions 
till I have money saved to pay for them ; and to go to 
Ceylon and back would be torture unless I had a lot. 
You must answer this at once, please; so that I may 
know what to do. We would dearly like you to come 
on here. I'll tell you how it can be done; I can come 
up and meet you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got 
over your sea-sickness, I could just come on board and 
we could return together to Samoa, and you could have 
a month of our life here, which I believe you could not 
help liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miser- 
able screws, and some of them a little vicious. I had a 
dreadful fright — the passage in my mother's letter is 
recrossed and I see it says the end of 794: so much the 
better, then ; but I would like to submit to you my al- 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 ternative plan. I could meet you at Hawaii, and recon- 
J"^^- duct you to Hawaii, so that we could have a full six 
weeks together and I believe a little over, and you 
would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native 
life, native foods, native houses — and perhaps be in 
time to seethe German flag raised, who knows? — and 
we could generally yarn for all we were worth. I 
should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious 
to know how the climate affected you. It is quite hit 
or miss ; it suits me, it suits Graham, it suits all our fam- 
ily; others it does not suit at all. It is either gold or 
poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is at 12; 
at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to 
roost early. 

A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory ; 
they washed the black paint off, and behold ! it was his 
brother. When I last heard he was sitting in his house, 
with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous 
war is an ugly business ; but I believe the civilised is 
fully uglier; but Lord! what fun! 

I should say we now have definite news that there 
are three women's heads ; it was difficult to get it out 
of the natives who are all ashamed and the women all 
in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done to punish 
or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false re- 
port that the head had been returned. 

Thursday, ijth. 
Mataafa driven away from Savaii. I cannot write 
about this, and do not know what should be the end 
of it. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

Monday, I'jth. 

Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk) to lunch yes- 1893 
terday. There is no real certain news yet: I must say, •'"^' 
no man could swear to any result; but the sky looks 
horribly black for Mataafa and so many of our friends 
along with him. The thing has an abominable, a 
beastly, nightmare interest. But it's wonderful gener- 
ally how little one cares about the wounded ; hospital 
sights, etc. ; things that used to murder me. I was far 
more struck with the excellent way in which things 
were managed; as if it had been a peep-show; I held 
some of the things at an operation, and did not care a 
dump. 

Tuesdaf, i8lb. 

Sunday came the Katoomba, Captain Bickford, C. 
M. G. Yesterday, Graham and I went down to call, 
and find he has orders to suppress Mataafa at once, and 
has to go down to-day before daybreak to Manono. 
He is a very capable, energetic man ; if he had only 
come ten days ago, all this would have gone by ; but 
now the questions are thick and difficult, (i) Will Ma- 
taafa surrender ? (2) Will his people allow themselves 
to be disarmed ? (3) What will happen to them if they 
do ? (4) What will any of them believe after former 
deceptions ? The three consuls were scampering on 
horseback to Leulumoega to the King; no Cusack- 
Smith, without whose accession I could not send a let- 
ter to Mataafa. I rode up here, wrote my letter in the 
sweat of the concordance and with the able-bodied 
help of Lloyd — and dined. Then down in continual 
showers and pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 not returned. Back to the inn for my horse, and to 
July. (3^_s.'s, when I find him just returned and he accepts 
my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. 
And to-day have been in a crispation of energy and 
ill-temper, raking my wretched mail together. It is a 
hateful business, waiting for the news ; it may come to 
a fearful massacre yet. — Yours ever, 

R. L. S. 



256 



XXXII 

August, 1893. 

My dear Colvin, — Quite impossible to write. Your 1893 
letter is due to-day; a nasty, rainy-like morning with ^^^' 
huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo shadow on the 
sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me hum- 
bly give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the 
most, or the only, powerful member of the family ; for 
some days she has been the Flower of the Flock. Belle 
is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both 
been down with ' ' belly belong him " (Black Boy speech). 
As for me, I have to lay aside my lawn tennis, having 
(as was to be expected) had a smart but eminently 
brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I 
have been re-casting the beginning of the Hanging Judge 
or Weir of Hermiston ; then I have been cobbling on 
my grandfather, whose last chapter (there are only to 
be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter 
of inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) 
which one learns at this trade, that somehow and some 
time, by perpetual staring and glowering and re-writing, 
order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope; there is 
one piece for instance that I want in — 1 cannot put it 
one place for a good reason — I cannot put it another 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 ^ov a better — and every time I look at it, I turn sick 
^^^' and put the ms. away. 

Well, your letter hasn't come, and a number of others 
are missing. It looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so 
I'll blame nobody, and proceed to business. 

It looks as if 1 was going to send you the first three 
chapters of my Grandfather. . . . If they were set up, 
it would be that much anxiety off my mind. I have a 
strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my ancestors' 
souls in my charge, and might miscarry with them. 

There's a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is 
needed. Still, Chapter i. seems about right to me, and 
much of Chapter 11. Chapter iii. I know nothing of, as 
I told you. And Chapter iv. is at present all ends and 
beginnings ; but it can be pulled together. 

This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this 
month, and 1 may add that it is not only more than you 
deserve, but just about more than I was equal to. I 
have been and am entirely useless; just able to tinker at 
my Grandfather. The three chapters — perhaps also a 
little of the fourth — will come home to you next mail 
by the hand of my cousin Graham Balfour, a very nice 
fellow whom I recommend to you warmly — and 
whom I think you will like. This will give you time 
to consider my various and distracted schemes. 

All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again 
as soon as the war-ships leave. Adieu. 

R. L. S. 



258 



XXXIII 

2^rd y^ugust. 

My dear Colvin, — Your pleasing letter re The Ebb 1893 
Tide, to hand. I propose, if it be not too late, to delete "^* 
Lloyd's name. He has nothing to do with the last half. 
The first we wrote together, as the beginning of a long 
yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather 
unfair on the young man to couple his name with so 
infamous a work. Above all, as you had not read the 
two last chapters, which seem to me the most ugly and 
cynical of all. ^ 

You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I 
am not. It is not because of your letter, but because of 
the complicated miseries that surround me and that I 
choose to say nothing of. Life is not all Beer and Skit- 
tles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out 
from white to black and blacker, and the poor things 
of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron 
faith } I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate 
, decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still 
believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my 
own share in the missteps, and can bow my head to 
the result, like an old, stern, unhappy devil of a Norse- 
man, as my ultimate character is. . . . 

1 On a first reading of the incomplete ms. of The Ebb Tide, dislike of 
the three rascally heroes had made me unjust to the imaginative force 
and vividness of the treatment. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 Well, Ilfaut cultiver son jar din. That last expres- 
^"^- sion of poor, unhappy human wisdom I take to my 
heart and go to St. Ives. 

2/\th Aug. 

And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep 
ultimately and '* a' the clouds has blawn away." " Be 
sure we'll have some pleisand weather, When a' the 
clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone.?) away." Verses 
that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I be- 
lieve had for Burns. They have no merit, but are some- 
how good. I am now in a most excellent humor. 

I am deep in St. Ives, which, I believe, will be the next 
novel done. But it is to be clearly understood that I 
promise nothing, and may throw in your face the very 
last thing you expect — or I expect. St. Ives will (to 
my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a 
funny style ; a little stilted and left-handed ; the style of 
St. Ives ; also, to some extent, the style of R. L. S. dic- 
tating. St. Ives is unintellectual, and except as an ad- 
venture novel, dull. But the adventures seem to me 
sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story. 
Speed his wings. 

Sunday night. 

De coeur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher con- 
frere, je me remets a vous ecrire. St. Ives is now in the 
5th. chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated 
draft. I do not believe I shall end by disliking it. 

Monday. 

Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is very 
well indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

but not very well; Lloyd is in good spirits and very 1893 
well; Belle has a real good fever which has put her pipe ^"^* 
out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes 
with him three chapters of The Family, and is to go to 
you as soon as he can. He cannot be much the master 
of his movements, but you grip him when you can and 
get all you can from him, as he has lived about six 
months with us and he can tell you just what is true 
and what is not — and not the dreams of dear old Ross.^ 
He is a good fellow, is he not ? 

Since you rather revise your views of The Ebb Tide, 
I think Lloyd's name might stick, but I'll leave it to you. 
I'll tell you just how it stands. Up to the discovery of 
the champagne, the tale was all planned between us 
and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had 
nothing to do with it except talking it over. For we 
changed our plan, gave up the projected Monte Cristo, 
and cut it down for a short story. My jmpression — (I 
beg your pardon — this is a local joke — a firm here had 
on its beer labels, "sole jmporters ") — is that it will 
never be popular, but might make a little succes de 
scandale. However, I'm done with it now, and not 
sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones 
for what I care. 

Hole essential. 2 I am sorry about the maps; but I 
want 'em for next edition, so see and have proofs sent. 

1 Dr. Fairfax Ross, a distinguished physician of Sydney, and friend 
of the Stevenson family, who during a visit to England this summer 
had conveyed to me no very reassuring impression as to the healthful- 
ness of the island life and climate. 

2 W. Hole, R. S. A. : essential for the projected illustrations to Kid^ 
napped and Cafriona. 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 You are quite right about the bottle and the great Huish, 
^^* I must try to make it clear. No, I will not write a play 
for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the 
work oi falsification which a play demands is of all 
tasks the most ungrateful } And I have done it a long 
while — and nothing ever came of it. 

Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You 
would get the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, would 
you not? for bracing. And so much less sea! And 
then you could actually see Vailima, which I would like 
you to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that 
is to be; though it's a wrench not to be planted in 
Scotland — that I can never deny — if I could only be 
buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tomb- 
stone like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers 
are crying! Did you see a man who wrote the Stichit 
Minister} and dedicated it to me, in words that brought 
the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them. 
** Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups 
are crying. His heart remembers how." Ah, by God, 
it does ! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots destiny 
throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my 
head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time ! 

And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear 
Ross, who remembers, 1 believe, my letters and Fanny's 
when we were first installed, and were really hoeing a 
hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes, 
asparagus, kohl-rabbi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine- 
apples. Cape gooseberries — galore; pints of milk and 

1 Mr. S. R. Crockett had been acquainted with R. L, S. as long ago 
as Bournemouth days, and had remained in friendly correspondence 
with him since. 

262 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

cream; fresh meat five days a week. It is the rarest 1893 
thing for any of us to touch a tin ; and the gnashing of ^^' 
teeth when it has to be done is dreadful — for no one 
who has not lived on them for six months knows what 
the Hatred of the Tin is. As for exposure, my weak- 
ness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a month 
without leaving the verandah — for my sins, be it said! 
Doubtless, when I go about and, as the Doctor says, 
*' expose myself to malaria," I am in far better health; 
and I would do so more too — for I do not mean to be 
silly — but the difficulties are great. However, you see 
how much the dear Doctor knows of my diet and hab- 
its! Malaria practically does not exist in these islands; 
it is a negligeable quantity. What really bothers us a 
little is the mosquito affair — the so-called elephant- 
iasis — ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural 
history, quotf 

Hi! stop! you say The Ebb Tide is the ''working 
out of an artistic problem of a kind." Well, I should 
just bet it was! You don't like Attwater. But look 
at my three rogues; they're all there, I'll go bail. Three 
types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong 
man with a weakness, that are gone through and lived 
out. 

Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good 
deal sorrier and angrier about the mismanagement of 
all the white officials. I cannot bear to write about 
that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in 
Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten 
with whips — and the women's heads taken — all 
under white auspices. And for upshot and result 
of so much shame to the white powers — Tamasese 

263 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 already conspiring! as I knew and preached in vain 
^"^* must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to meddle 
in politics! 

I suppose you're right about Simon. ^ But it is 
Symon throughout in that blessed little volume my fa- 
ther bought for me in Inverness in the year of grace '81, 
I believe — the trial of James Stewart, with the Jacobite 
pamphlet and the dying speech appended — out of 
which the whole of Davie has already been begotten, 
and which I felt it a kind of loyalty to follow. I really 
ought to have it bound in velvet and gold, if I had any 
gratitude ! and the best of the lark is, that the name of 
David Balfour is not anywhere within the bounds of it. 
A pretty curious instance of the genesis of a book. I 
am delighted at your good word for David; I believe 
the two together make up much the best of my work 
and perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of 
them, at least. There is one hitch; instead of three 
hours between the two parts, I fear there have passed 
three years over Davie's character; but do not tell any- 
body; see if they can find it out for themselves; and no 
doubt his experiences in Kidnapped would go far to 
form him. I would like a copy to go to G. Meredith. 

Wednesday. 

Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start 
with Graham next week and go to Honolulu to meet 
the other steamer and return : I do believe a fortnight 
at sea would do me good; yet I am not yet certain. 
The crowded ^^-steamer sticks in my throat. 

1 Simon Eraser, the Master of Lovat, in Catriona: the spelling of his 
name. 

264 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Tuesday, \ 2th Sept. 
Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals of 1893 
Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the ^^P^* 
band of the Katoomba come up, and they came, four- 
teen of 'em, with drum, fife, cymbals and bugles, blue 
jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The house 
was all decorated with scented greenery above and be- 
low. We had not only our own nine out-door workers, 
but a contract party that we took on in charity to pay 
their war-fme; the band besides, as it came up the 
mountain, had collected a following of children by the 
way, and we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive 
them. Chicken, ham, cake, and fruits were served out 
with coffee and lemonade, and all the afternoon we had 
rounds of claret negus flavoured with rum and limes. 
They played to us, they danced, they sang, they tum- 
bled. Our boys came in the end of the verandah and 
gave them a. dance for a while. It was anxious work 
getting this stopped once it had begun, but I knew the 
band was going on a programme. Finally they gave 
three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, 
formed up and marched off playing — till a kicking 
horse in the paddock put their pipes out something of 
the suddenest — we thought the big drum was gone, 
but Simele flew to the rescue. And so they wound 
away down the hill with ever another call of the bugle, 
leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps the most 
contented hosts that ever watched the departure of suc- 
cessful guests. Simply impossible to tell how well 
these blue-jackets behaved; a most interesting lot of 
men ; this education of boys for the navy is making a 
class, wholly apart — how shall I call them .^ — a kind 

265 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 of lower-class public school boy, well-mannered, fairly 
^^P^- intelligent, sentimental as a sailor. What is more shall 
be writ on board ship if anywhere. 
Please send Catriona to G. Meredith. 

S. S. Mariposa. 

To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to 
your honour. R. L. S. 



266 



Oct. 



XXXIV 

WaikiM, Honolulu, H. I. 
Oct. 2yd, 1893. 

Dear Colvin, — My wife came up on the steamer and 1893 
we go home together in 2 days.^ I am practically all right, 
only sleepy and tired easily, slept yesterday from 1 1 to 
1 1.45, from I to 2.50, went to bed at 8 p.m, and with an 
hour's interval slept till 6 a. m., close upon 14 hours out of 
the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, 
though this has been an interesting visit, and politics 
have been curious indeed to study. We go to P. P. C. 
orrthe ''Queen" this morning; poor, recluse lady, ah- 
reuvee d' injures quelle est. Had a rather annoying 
lunch on board the American man-of-war, with a mem- 
ber of the P. G. (provisional government) ; and a good 
deal of anti-royalist talk, which I had to sit out — not 
only for my host's sake, but my fellow guests. At last, 
I took the lead and changed the conversation. 

R. L. S. 

I am being busted here by party named Hutchin- 
son. 2 Seems good, 

1 In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had been 
down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu, and 
Mrs. Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him home. 

2 The bust exhibited in the New Gallery Summer Exhibition, 1895. 

267 



Nov. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

[Vailima — November.'] 
1893 Home again, and found all well, thank God. I am 
perfectly well again and ruddier than the cherry. 
Please note that 8000 is not bad for a volume of short 
stories;^ the Merry Men did a good deal worse; the 
short story never sells. I hope Catriona will do; that 
is the important. The reviews seem mixed and per- 
plexed, and one had the peculiar virtue to make me 
angry. I am in a fair way to expiscate my family his- 
tory. Fanny and I had a lovely voyage down, with 
our new C. J. and the American Land Commissioner, 
and on the whole, and for these disgusting steamers, a 
pleasant ship's company. I cannot understand why you 
don't take to the Hawaii scheme. Do you understand } 
You cross the Atlantic in six days, and go from 'Frisco to 
Honolulu in seven. Thirteen days at sea in all. — I have 
no wish to publish The Ebb Tide as a book, let it wait. 
It will look well in the portfolio. I would like a copy, 
of course, for that end; and to '' look upon't again " — 
which I scarce dare. 

[^Later.'] 

This is disgraceful. I have done nothing; neither 
work nor letters. On the Me (May) day, we had a 
great triumph; our Protestant boys, instead of going 
with their own villages and families, went of their own 
accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for 
them on purpose to complete the uniform, they having 
bought the stuff; and they were hailed as they marched 
in as the Tama-ona — the rich man's children. This is 
really a score ; it means that Vailima is publicly taken 

1 Island Nights' Entertainments. 
268 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

as a family. Then we had my birthday feast a week 1893 
late, owing to diarrhoea on the proper occasion. The °^' 
feast was laid in the Hail, and was a singular mass of 
food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef, 100 lbs. pork, and the fruit 
and filigree in a proportion. We had sixty horse-posts 
driven in the gate paddock ; how many guests I cannot 
guess, perhaps 150. They came between three and 
four and left about seven. Seumanu gave me one of 
his names ; and when my name was called at the 'ava 
drinking, behold, it was Au mat taua ma manu-vaof 
You would scarce recognise me, if you heard me thus 
referred to ! 

Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, 
Belle, Lloyd and 1, and drove in great style, with a na- 
tive outrider, to the prison ; a huge gift of 'ava and to- 
bacco under the seats. The prison is now under the 
pule of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of 
fortune in Servia and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly 
creature, who is adored by '* bis chiefs" (as he calls 
them) meaning our political prisoners. And we came 
into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank 
'ava with the prisoners and the captain. It may amuse 
you to hear how it is proper to drink 'ava. When the 
cup is handed you, you reach your arm out somewhat 
behind you, and slowly pour a libation, saying with 
somewhat the manner of prayer, " la taumafa e le atua. 
Ua matagofie le fesilafaiga nei." "Be it (high-chief) 
partaken of by the God. How (high-chief) beautiful to 
view is this (high-chief) gathering." This pagan prac- 
tice is very queer. 1 should say that the prison 'ava 
was of that not very welcome form that we elegantly 
call spit-'ava, but of course there was no escape, and it 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I moral- 
ised by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again ? 
did she appreciate that if we were in London, we should 
be actually jostled in the street ? and there was nobody 
in the whole of Britain who knew how to take 'ava like 
a gentleman ? 'Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations 
— or, if you like, of one civilisation and one barbarism. 
And, as usual, the barbarism is the more engaging. 
Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our 

\ "^ ^^^ !- spot. I just don't seem to be able to make 
(mortal) ^ ^ 

up my mind to your not coming. By this time, you 

will have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to 

tell you something about us, and something reliable. I 

shall feel for the first time as if you knew a little about 

Samoa after that. Fanny seems to be in the right way 

now. I must say she is very, very well for her, and 

complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down 

sola (at least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; 

Belle, Lloyd and I went a walk up the mountain road — 

the great public highway of the island, where you have 

to go single file. The object was to show Belle that 

gaudy valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. 

If the road is to be made and opened, as our new Chief 

Justice promises, it will be one of the most beautiful 

roads in the world. But the point is this; I forgot I 

had been three months in civilisation, wearing shoes 

and stockings, and I tell you I suffered on my soft feet ; 

coming home, down hill, on that stairway of loose stones, 

I could have cried. Oh, yes, another story, I knew I 

had. The house boys had not been behaving well, so 

the other night I announced a fnno, and Lloyd and i 

270 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



went into the boys' quarters, and I talked to them I sup- 
pose for half an hour, and Talolo translated; Lloyd was 
there principally to keep another ear on the interpreter; 
else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed 
all their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; 
and one man's wages I announced I had cut down by 
one half Imagine his taking this smiling! Ever since, 
he has been specially attentive and greets me with a 
face of really heavenly brightness. This is another good 
sign of their really and fairly accepting me as a chief 
When I first came here, if I had fined a man a sixpence, 
he would have quit work that hour, and now I remove 
half his income, and he is glad to stay on — nay, does 
not seem to entertain the possibility of leaving. And 
this in the face of one particular difficulty — I mean 
our house in the bush, and no society, and no women 
society within decent reach. 

I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form. 



1893 
Nov. 



HOUSE. 

+ o Sosimo, provost 

and butler, and 

my valet. 
o Misifolo, who is 

Fanny and Belle's 

chamberlain. 



KITCHEN. 

+ o Talolo, provost 
and chief cook. 

+ o lopu, second 
cook. 

Tali, his wife, no 
wages. 

Ti'a, Samoan cook. 

Feiloa'i, his child, 
no wages, like- 
wise no work — 
Belle's pet. 

+ o Leuelu, Fanny's 
boy^ gardener, odd 
jobs. 

In APIA. 

+ Eliga, workman 
and daily errand 
man. 

271 



OUTSIDE. 

+ o Henry Simele, 

provost and overseer 

of 4 outside boys. 

Lu. 

Tasi Sele. 

Maiele. 

Pulu, who is also our 
talking -man and 
cries the 'ava. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti'a is 
^^' the man who has just been fined i his wages ; he is a 
beautiful old man, the living image of ''Fighting Gladi- 
ator," my favourite statue — but a dreadful humbug. I 
think we keep him on a little on account of his looks. 
This sign o marks those who have been two years or 
upwards in the family. I note all my old boys have 
the cross of honour, except Misifolo; well, poor dog, he 
does his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. 
It is a remark that has often been made by visitors: 
you never see a Samoan run, except at Vailima. Do 
you not suppose that makes me proud ? 

I am pleased to see what a success The Wrecker 
was, having already in little more than a year out- 
stripped The Master of BaUantrae. 

About David Balfour in two volumes, do see that 
they make it a decent-looking book, and tell me, do 
you think a little historical appendix would be of ser- 
vice ? Lang bleats for one, and I thought I might ad- 
dress it to him as a kind of open letter. 

Dec. 4th. 

No time after all. Good-bye, R. L. S. 



272 



XXXV 

My dear Colvin, — One page out of my picture book 1893 
I must give you. Fine burning day ; i past two p. m. ^^^• 
We four begin to rouse up from reparatory slumbers, 
yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress : 
we have had a party the day before, X'mas Day, with 
all the boys absent but one, and latterly two; we had 
cooked all day long, a cold dinner, and lo ! at two our 
guests began to arrive, though dinner was not till six; 
they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and break- 
fasted. . Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on 
our horses and start off in the hottest part of the after- 
noon to ride 4^ miles, attend a native feast in the goal, 
and ride four and a half miles back. But there is no 
help for it. I am a sort of father of the political prison- 
ers, and have charge d'dmes in that riotously absurd 
establishment, Apia Gaol. The twenty-three (1 think it 
is) chiefs act as under gaolers. The other day they 
told the Captain of an attempt to escape. One of the 
lesser political prisoners the other day effected a swift 
capture, while the Captain was trailing about with the 
warrant; the man came to see what was wanted; 
came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my prisoner 
offers to shew him the dark cell, shoves him in, and 

273 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 locks the door. ''Why do you do that?" cries the 
^^^' former gaoler. ''A warrant," says he. Finally, the 
chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them! 

The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a 
little room, and three cells, on each side of a central 
passage; it is surrounded by a fence of corrugated iron, 
and shews, over the top of that, only a gable end with 
the inscription O le Fale Puipui. It is on the edge of the 
mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway 
of turf When we drew near, we saw the gates stand- 
ing open and a prodigious crowd outside — I mean pro- 
digious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people. 
The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, 
and there seemed to be a continuous circulation inside 
and out. The Captain came to meet us; our boy, who 
had been sent ahead, was there to take the horses; 
and we passed inside the court, which was full of food, 
and rang continuously to the voice of the caller of gifts ; 
I had to blush a little later when my own present came, 
and I heard my one pig and eight miserable pineapples 
being counted out like guineas. In the four corners of 
the yard and along one wall, there are make-shift, 
dwarfish, Samoan houses or huts, which have been run 
up since Captain Wurmbrand came to accommodate 
the chiefs. Before that they were all crammed into the 
six cells, and locked in for the night, some of them 
with dysentery. They are wretched constructions 
enough, but sanctified by the presence of chiefs. We 
heard a man corrected loudly to-day for saying ''Fale'' 
of one of them ; '' Maota/' roared the highest chief 
present — * ' palace. ' ' About eighteen chiefs, gorgeously 
arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led us into one of 

274 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

these maotas, where you may be sure we had to crouch, 1893 
almost to kneel, to enter, and where a row of pretty ^^' 
girls occupied one side to make the 'ava (kava). The 
highest chief present was a magnificent man, as high 
chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his face 
is full of shrewdness and authority ; his figure like Ajax ; 
his name Auilua. He took the head of the building 
and put Belle on his right hand. Fanny was called first 
for the 'ava (kava). Our names were called in English 
style, the high-chief wife of Mr. St. — (an unpronounce- 
able something) ; Mrs. Straw, and the like. And when 
we went into the other house to eat, we found we were 
seated alternately with chiefs about the — table, I was 
about to say, but rather floor. Everything was to be 
done European style with a vengeance! We were the 
only whites present, except Wurmbrand, and still I had 
no suspicion of the truth. They began to take off their 
ulas (necklaces of scarlet seeds) and hang them about 
our necks ; we politely resisted, and were told that the 
King (who had stopped off their siva) had sent down to 
the prison a message to the effect that he was to give a 
dinner to-morrow, and wished their second-hand ulas 
for it. Some of them were content; others not. There 
was a ring of anger in the boy's voice, as he told us we 
were to wear them past the King's house. Dinner 
over, I must say they are moderate eaters at a feast, we 
returned to the 'ava house ; and then the curtain drew 
suddenly up upon the set scene. We took our seats, 
and Auilua began to give me a present, recapitulating 
each article as he gave it out, with some appropriate 
comment. He called me several times ''their only 
friend," said they were all in slavery, had no money, 

275 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1893 and these things were all made by the hands of their 
^^^' families — nothing bought; he had one phrase, in which 
I heard his voice rise up to a note of triumph : "This is 
a present from the poor prisoners to the rich man." 
Thirteen pieces of tapa, some of them surprisingly fine, 
one I think unique; thirty fans of every shape and col- 
our; a kava cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua conducted 
the business with weighty gravity ; but before the end 
of the thirty fans, his comments began to be humorous. 
When it came to a little basket, he said: " Here was a 
little basket for Tusitala to put sixpence in, when he 
could get hold of one" — with a delicious grimace. I 
answered as best I was able through a miserable inter- 
preter; and all the while, as I went on, I heard the crier 
outside in the court calling my gift of food, which I per- 
ceived was to be Gargantuan. I had brought but three 
boys with me. It was plain that they were wholly 
overpowered. We proposed to send for our gifts on 
the morrow; but no, said the interpreter, that would 
never do; they must go away to-day, Mulinuu must 
see my porters taking away the gifts, — ''make 'em 
jella," quoth the interpreter. And I began to see the 
reason of this really splendid gift; one half, gratitude to 
me — one half, a wipe at the King. 

And now, to introduce darker colours, you must 
know this visit of mine to the gaol was just a little bit 
risky ; we had several causes for anxiety ; it migbt have 
been put up, to connect with a Tamasese rising. Tu- 
sitala and his family would be good hostages. On 
the other hand, there were the Mulinuu people all 
about. We could see the anxiety of Captain Wurm- 
brand, no less anxious to have us go, than he had been 

276 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

to see us come; he was deadly white and plainly had a 1893 
bad headache, in the noisy scene. Presently, the noise ^^* 
grew uproarious; there was a rush at the gate — a rush 
in, not a rush out — where the two sentries still wStood 
passive; Auilua leaped from his place (it was then that 
I got the name of Ajax for him) and the next moment 
we heard his voice roaring and saw his mighty figure 
swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the deuce 
would have it, we could not understand a word of 
what was going on. It might be nothing more than 
the ordinary "grab racket" with which a feast com- 
monly concludes ; it might be something worse. We 
made what arrangements we could for my tapa, fans, 
etc., as well as for my five pigs, my masses of fish, 
taro, etc., and with great dignity, and ourselves laden 
with ulas and other decorations, passed between the 
sentries among the howling mob to our horses. All's 
well that ends well. Owing to Fanny and Belle, we had 
to walk; and, as Lloyd said, *'he had at last ridden in a 
circus." The whole length of Apia we paced our tri- 
umphal progress, past the King's palace, past the Ger- 
man firm at Sogi — you can follow it on the map — 
amidst admiring exclamations of "' Manaia ' ' — beauti- 
ful — it may be rendered ''Oh, my! ain't they dandy " 
— until we turned up at last into our road as the dusk 
deepened into night. It was really exciting. And there 
is one thing sure; no such feast was ever made for a 
single family, and no such present ever given to a single 
white man. It is something to have been the hero of 
it. And whatever other ingredients there were, un- 
doubtedly gratitude was present. As money value I 
have actually gained on the transaction ! 

277 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1895 Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott 
^^^' has already put his nose in, in St Ives, sir; but his ap- 
pearance is not yet complete; nothing is in that ro- 
mance, except the story. I have to announce that I 
am off work, probably for six months. I must own 
that I have overworked bitterly — overworked ■ — there, 
that's legible. My hand is a thing that was, and in the 
meanwhile so are my brains. And here in the very 
midst, comes a plausible scheme to make Vailima pay, 
which will perhaps let me into considerable expense 
just when 1 don't want it. You know the vast cyni- 
cism of my view of affairs, and how readily and (as 
some people say) with how much gusto 1 take the 
darker view ? 

Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome's paper, 
and let me see Tbe Ebb Tide as a serial ? It is always 
very important to see a thing in different presentments. 
I want every number. Politically we begin the new 
year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a 
bust which may spell destruction to Samoa. I have 
written to Baxter about his proposal. ^ 

1 The scheme of the Edinburgh Edition. 



278 



XXXVI 

Vailima^Jan. 2^th, 1894. 

My dear Colvin, — I had fully intended for your edu- 1894 
cation and moral health to fob you off with the meanest ^^^' 
possible letter this month, and unfortunately I find I will 
have to treat you to a good long account of matters 
here. I believe I have told you before about Tui-ma-le- 
alii-fano and my taking him down to introduce him to 
the Chief Justice. Well, Tui came back to Vailima one 
day in the blackest sort of spirits, saying the war was 
decided, that he also must join in the fight, and that 
there was no hope whatever of success. He must fight 
as a point of honour for his family and country; and in 
his case, even if he escaped on the field of battle, de- 
portation was the least to be looked for. He said he 
had a letter of complaint from the Great Council of 
A'ana which he wished to lay before the Chief Justice; 
and he asked me to accompany him as if I were his 
nurse. We went down about dinner time; and by the 
way received from a lurking native the famous letter in 
an official blue envelope gummed up to the edges. It 
proved to be a declaration of war quite formal but with 
variations that really made you bounce. White resi- 
dents were directly threatened, bidden to have nothing 
to do with the King's party, not to receive their goods 

279 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 in their houses, etc., under pain of an accident. How- 
Jan, g^gj.^ ^j^g Chief Justice took it very wisely and mildly, 
and between us, he and I and Tui made up a plan 
which has proved successful — so far. The war is over 
— fifteen chiefs are this morning undergoing a curious 
double process of law, comparable to a court martial; in 
which their complaints are to be considered, and if pos- 
sible righted, while their conduct is to be criticised, 
perhaps punished. Up to now, therefore, it has been a 
most successful policy; but the danger is before us. 
My own feeling would decidedly be that all would 
be spoiled by a single execution. The great hope 
after all lies in the knotless, rather flaccid character 
of the people. These are no Maoris. All the powers 
that Cedarcrantz let go by disuse the new C. J. 
is stealthily and boldly taking back again. Perhaps 
some others also. He has shamed the chiefs in Muli- 
nuu into a law against taking heads, with a punish- 
ment of six years' imprisonment, and for a chief degra- 
dation. To him has been left the sole conduct of this 
anxious and decisive inquiry. If the natives stand it, 
why, well! But I am nervous. 



280 



XXXVII 

Feh., 1894. 

Dear Colvin, — By a reaction, when your letter is a 1894 
little decent, mine is to be naked and unashamed. We ^^^• 
have been much exercised. No one can prophesy here, of 
course, and the balance still hangs trembling, but I think 
it will go for peace. 

The mail was very late this time; hence the paltryness 
of this note. When it came and I had read it, I retired 
with The Ebb Tide and read it all before I slept. I 
did not dream it was near as good ; I am afraid I think 
it excellent. A little indecision about Attwater, not 
much. It gives me great hope, as I see I can work in 
that constipated, mosaic manner, which is what I have 
to do just now with Weir of Hermiston. 

We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing 
the event. We have two guests in the house, Captain- 
Count Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de Lautreppe. 
Lautreppe is awfully nice — a quiet, gentlemanly fel- 
low, gonfle de rhes, as he describes himself — once a 
sculptor in the atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows some- 
thing of art, and is really a resource to me. 

Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no 
more of Graham } 

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VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 What about my grandfather? The family history 

P^^- will grow to be quite a chapter. 

I suppose I am growing sensitive ; perhaps, by living 
among barbarians, I expect more civility. Look at this 
from the author of a very interesting and laudatory cri- 
tique. He gives quite a false description of something 
of mine, and talks about my "insolence." Frankly, I 
supposed " insolence " to be a tapua word. I do not 
use it to a gentleman, I would not write it of a gentle- 
man : I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write 
it of a gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever 
fellow as he is) wants to be kicked for applying it to 
me. By writing a novel — even a bad one — I do not 
make myself a criminal for anybody to insult. This 
may amuse you. But either there is a change in jour- 
nalism, too gradual for you to remark it on the spot, or 
there is a change in me. I cannot bear these phrases; I 
long to resent them. My forbears, the tenant farmers 
of the Mains, would not have suffered such expressions, 
unless it had been from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or 
maybe Auchendrane. My Family Pride bristles. I am 
like the negro, '* I just heard last night " who my great, 
great, great, great grandfather was. — Ever yours, 

R. L. S. 



282 



XXXVIII 

March, 1894. 

My dear Colvin, — This is the very day the mail goes, 1894 
and I have as yet written you nothing. But it was just ^^^• 
as well — as it was all about my ''blacks and choco- 
lates," and what of it had relation to whites you will 
read some of in the Times. It means, as you will see, 
that I have at one blow quarrelled with all the officials 
of Samoa, the Foreign Office, and I suppose her Majes- 
ty the Queen with milk and honey blest. But you'll 
see in the Times. I am very well indeed, but just 
about dead and mighty glad the mail is near here, and I 
can just give up all hope of contending with my letters, 
and lie down for the rest of the day. These Times let- 
ters are not easy to write. And I dare say the consuls 
say, ''Why, then, does he write them }" 

I had miserable luck with St. Ives; being already half- 
way through it, a book I had ordered six months ago 
arrives at last, and I have to change the first half of it 
from top to bottom! How could I have dreamed the 
French prisoners were watched over like a female char- 
ity school, kept in a grotesque livery, and shaved twice 
a week } And I had made all my points on the idea 
that they were unshaved and clothed anyhow. How- 
ever, this last is better business ; if only the book had 
come when I ordered it! A propos, many of the books 

283 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 you announce don't come as a matter of fact. When 
^^^' they are of any value, it is best to register them. Your 
letter, alas! is not here; I sent it down to the cottage, 
with all my mail, for Fanny ; on Sunday night a boy 
comes up with a lantern and a note from Fanny, to say 
the woods are full of Atuas^ and I must bring a horse 
down that instant, as the posts are established beyond 
her on the road, and she does not want to have the 
fight going on between us. Impossible to get a horse ; 
so I started in the dark on foot, with a revolver, and my 
spurs on my bare feet, leaving directions that the boy 
should mount after me with the horse. Try such an 
experience on Our Road once, and do it, if you please, 
after you have been down town from nine o'clock till 
six, on board the ship-of-war lunching, teaching Sunday 
School (I actually do) and making necessary visits; and 
the Saturday before, having sat all day from i past six to 
i past four, scriving at my Times letter. About half- 
way up, just in fact at '* point " of the outposts, I met 
Fanny coming up. Then all night long I was being 
wakened with scares that really should be looked into, 
though I knew there was nothing in them and no bot- 
tom to the whole story; and the drums and shouts and 
cries from Tanugamanono and the town keeping up an 
all night corybantic chorus in the moonlight — the moon 
rose late — and the search-light of the war-ship in the 
harbour making a jewel of brightness as it lit up the bay 

1 A fresh rising, this time of the partisans of Tamasese, belonging to 
the island of Atua, had taken place, and was, after some time, sup- 
pressed, with circumstances of damage and suffering which Stevenson 
thought might have been avoided if the policy of the Three Powers 
had been wiser or more judiciously carried out. 

284 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

of Apia in the distance. And then next morning, about 1894 
eight o'clock, a drum coming out of the woods and a ^^^' 
party of patrols who had been in the woods on our left 
front (which is our true rear) coming up to the house, 
and meeting there another party who had been in the 

woods on our right \ ^^^ i which is Vaea Mountain, 

and 43 of them being entertained to 'ava and biscuits on 
the verandah, and marching off at last in single file for 
Apia. Briefly, it is not much wonder if your letter and 
my whole mail was left at the cottage, and I have no 
means of seeing or answering particulars. 

The whole thing was nothing but a bottomless scare; 
it was obviously so ; you couldn't make a child believe 
it was anything else, but it has made the consuls sit up. 
My own private scares were really abominably annoy- 
ing; as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth 
time perhaps — and that was no easy matter either, for 
I had a crick in my neck so agonising that I had to 
sleep sitting up — I heard noises as of a man being 
murdered in the boys' house. To be sure, said I, this 
is nothing again, but if a man's head was being taken, 
the noises would be the same! So I had to get up, 
stifle my cries of agony from the crick, get my revolver, 
and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there 
were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their 
own accord like good boys, and whiling the time over 
a game of Sweepi (Cascino — the whist of our island- 
ers) — and one of them was our champion idiot, Misi- 
folo, and I suppose he was holding bad cards, and los- 
ing all the time — and these noises were his humorous 
protests against Fortune ! 

285 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 Well, excuse this excursion into my ''blacks and 
^^^' chocolates." It is the last. You will have heard from 
Lysaght how I failed to write last mail. The said Ly- 
saght seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only 
sorry he could not stay with us longer. Austin came 
back from school last week, which made a great time 
for the Amanuensis, you may be sure. Then on Satur- 
day, the Curafoa came in — same commission, with all 
our old friends ; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, 
Austin and I went down to service and had lunch after- 
wards in the wardroom. The officers were awfully 
nice to Austin; they are the most amiable ship in the 
world; and after lunch we had a paper handed round 
on which we were to guess, and sign our guess, of 
the number of leaves on the pineapple; I never saw 
this game before, but it seems it is much practised in 
the Queen's Navee. When all have betted, one of the 
party begins to strip the pineapple head, and the person 
whose guess is furthest out has to pay for the sherry. 
My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of Tbe Ameri- 
can Commodore, and I found that Austin had entered 
and lost about a bottle of sherry ! He turned with great 
composure and addressed me. "I am afraid I must 
look to you, Uncle Louis." The Sunday School racket 
is only an experiment which I took up at the request 
of the late American Land Commissioner; I am trying 
it for a month, and if I do as ill as I believe, and the 
boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think it will 
end in a month. I have carte blanche, and say what I 
like; but does any single soul understand me ? 

Fanny is on the whole very much better. Lloyd has 
been under the weather, and goes for a month to the 

286 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

South Island of New Zealand for some skating, save the 1894 
mark! I get all the skating I want among officials. ^^^' 

Dear Colvin, please remember that my life passes 
among my ** blacks or chocolates." If I were to do 
as you propose, in a bit of a tiff, it would cut you off 
entirely from my life.^ You must try to exercise a trifle 
of imagination, and put yourself, perhaps with an effort, 
into some sort of sympathy with these people, or how 
am I to write to you ? I think you are truly a little too 
Cockney with me. — Ever yours, 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 

1 In reply to a petition, not meant to be so seriously taken, that his 
letters should not be so entirely taken up as some of the past winter 
had been with native affairs, of relatively little meaning or interest to 
his correspondent. 



287 



XXXIX 

Vailima, May i8tb, 1894. 

1894 My dear Colvin, — Your proposals for the Edinburgh 
^^' edition are entirely to my mind. About the Amateur 
Emigrant, it shall go to you by this mail well slashed. 
If you like to slash some more on your own account, 
I give you permission. Tis not a great work; but 
since it goes to make up the two first volumes as pro- 
posed, I presume it has not been written in vain.^ — 
Miscellanies, I see with some alarm the proposal to 
print Juvenilia, does it not seem to you taking myself a 
little too much as Grandfather William ? I am certainly 
not so young as I once was — a lady took occasion to 
remind me of the fact no later agone than last night. 
**Why don't you leave that to the young men, Mr. 
Stevenson.?*" said she — but when I remember that I 
felt indignant at even John Ruskin when he did some- 
thing of the kind I really feel myself blush from head to 
heel. If you want to make up the first volume, there 
are a good many works which I took the trouble to 
prepare for publication and which have never been re- 
published^ In addition to Roads and Dancing Cbil- 

1 The suppressed first part of the Amateur Emigrant, written in 
San Francisco in 1879, which it was proposed now to condense and to 
some extent recast for the Edinburgh Edition. 

288 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

dren, referred to by you, there is an Autumn effect in 1894 
the Portfolio, and a paper on Fontainebleau — Forest ^^^' 
Notes is the name of it — in CornhiU. I have no objec- 
tion to any of these being edited, say with a scythe, 
and reproduced. But I heartily abominate and reject the 
idea of reprinting the Pentland Rising. For God's sake 
let me get buried first 

Tales and Fantasies. Vols. i. and 11. have my hearty 
approval. But I think iii. and iv. had better be crammed 
into one as you suggest. 1 will reprint none of the sto- 
ries mentioned. They are below the mark. Well, 1 
dare say the beastly Body-Snatcher has merit, and I am 
unjust to it from my recollections of the PaU Mall. But 
the other two won't do. For vols. v. and vi., now 
changed into iv. and v., I propose the common title of 
South Sea Yarns. There ! These are all my differences 
of opinion. I agree with every detail of your arrange- 
ment, and, as you see, my objections have turned prin- 
cipally on the question of hawking unripe fruit. I dare 
say it is all pretty green, but that is no reason for us to 
fill the barrow with trash. Think of having a new set 
of type cast, paper especially made, etc., in order to set 
up rubbish that is not fit for the Saturday Scotsman. It 
would be the climax of shame. 

1 am sending you a lot of verses, which had best, I 
think, be called Underwoods Book in., but in what or- 
der are they to go ? Also, I am going on every day a 
little, till I get sick of it, with the attempt to get the 
Emigrant compressed into life; I know I can — or you 
can after me — do it. It is only a question of time and 
prayer and ink, and should leave something, no, not 
good, but not all bad — a very genuine appreciation of 

289 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 these folks. You are to remember besides there is that 
^^^* paper of mine on Bunyan in The Magazine of Art. Oh, 
and then there 's another thing in Seeley called some 
spewsome name, I cannot recall it. 

Well — come, here goes for Juvenilia. Dancing In- 
fants, Roads, An Autumn Effect, Forest Notes (but this 
should come at the end of them, as it's really rather 
riper), the t'other thing from Seeley, and I'll tell you, 
you may put in my letter to the Church of Scotland — 
it's not written amiss, and 1 dare say the Philosophy of 
Umbrellas might go in, but there I stick — and remem- 
ber that was a collaboration with James Walter Ferrier. 
Oh, and there was a little skit called the Charity Ba- 
laar, which you might see; I don't think it would do. 
Now, I do not think there are two other words that 
should be printed. — By the way, there is an article of 
mine called The Day after To-morrow in the Contem- 
porary which you might find room for somewhere; it 
is no' bad. 

Very busy with all these affairs and some native 
ones also. 



290 



XL 



Vailima,June i8th, '94. 

My dear Colvin, — You are to please understand that 1894 
my last letter is withdrawn unconditionally. You and J""^* 
Baxter are having all the trouble of this Edition, and I 
simply put myself in your hands for you to do what 
you like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, 
at any rate. Hence you are to conceive me withdraw- 
ing all objections to your printing anything you please. 
After all, it is a sort of family affair. About the Miscel- 
lany Section, both plans seem to me quite good. Toss 
up. I think the Old Gardener has to stay where I put 
him last. It would not do to separate John and Robert. 

In short, I am only sorry I ever uttered a word about 
the edition, and leave you to be the judge. I have had 
a vile cold which has prostrated me for more than a fort- 
night, and even now tears me nightly with spasmodic 
coughs ; but it has been a great victory. I have never 
borne a cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow 
by, before you begin to boast ! I have had no fever, and 
though I've been very unhappy, it's nigh over, I think. 
Of course, St. Ives has paid the penalty. I must not let 
you be disappointed in St. I. It is a mere tissue of ad- 
ventures ; the central figure not very well or very sharply 
drawn; no philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the 

291 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 happenings very good in themselves, I believe, but 
J""^' none of them bildende, none of them constructive, ex- 
cept in so far perhaps as they make up a kind of sham 
picture of the time, all in italics and all out of drawing. 
Here and there, I think, it is well written; and here and 
there it's not. Some of the episodic characters are 
amusing, I do believe; others not, I suppose. How- 
ever, they are the best of the thing, such as it is. If it 
has a merit to it, I should say it was a sort of delibera- 
tion and swing to the style, which seems to me to suit 
the mail-coaches and post-chaises with which it sounds 
all through. 'Tis my most prosaic book. 

I called on the two German ships now in port, and 
we are quite friendly with them, and intensely friendly 
of course with our own Curagoas. But it is other 
guess work on the beach. Some one has employed, or 
subsidised, one of the local editors to attack me once a 
week. He is pretty scurrilous and pretty false. The 
first effect of the perusal of the weekly Beast is to make 
me angry; the second is a kind of deep, golden content 
and glory, when I seem to say to people: *'See! this is 
my position — I am a plain man dwelling in the bush 
in a house, and behold they have to get up this kind of 
truck against me — and I have so much influence that 
they are obliged to write a weekly article to say I have 
none." 

By this time you must have seen Lysaght and for- 
given me the letter that came not at all. He was really 
so nice a fellow — he had so much to tell me of Mere- 
dith — and the time was so short — that I gave up the 
intervening days between mails entirely to entertain 
him. 

292 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

We go on pretty nicely. Fanny, Belle^ and I have 1894 
had two months alone, and it has been very pleasant. J""^- 
But by to-morrow or next day noon, we shall see the 
whole clan assembled again about Vailima table, which 
will be pleasant too ; seven persons in all, and the Babel 
of voices will be heard again in the big hall so long 
empty and silent. Good-bye. Love to all. Time to 
close. — Yours, ever, R. L. S. 



293 



XLI 



July, 1894. 
1894 My dear Colvin, — I have to thank you this time for 
^^^' a very good letter, and will announce for the future, 
though I cannot now begin to put in practice, good in- 
tentions for our correspondence. I will try to return to 
the old system and write from time to time during the 
month; but truly you did not much encourage me to 
continue! However, that is all by-past. I do not know 
that there is much in your letter that calls for answer. 
Your questions about St. Ives were practically answered 
in my last; so were your wails about the edition. Ama- 
teur Emigrant, etc. By the end of the year St. I. will 
be practically finished, whatever it be worth, and that 
I know not. When shall I receive proofs of the Mag- 
num Opus ? or shall I receive them at all ? 

The return of the Amanuensis feebly lightens my 
heart. You can see the heavy weather I was making 
of it with my unaided pen. The last month has been 
particularly cheery largely owing to the presence of our 
good friends the Curafoas. She is really a model ship, 
charming officers and charming seamen. They gave 
a ball last month, which was very rackety and joyous 
and naval. . . . 
On the following day, about one o'clock, three horse- 
294 



VAILIMA LETTERS 



men might have been observed approaching Vailima, 1894 
who gradually resolved themselves into two petty offi- •'" ^' 
cers and a native guide. Drawing himself up and sal- 
uting, the spokesman (a corporal of Marines) addressed 
me thus. *'Me and my shipmates inwites Mr. and 
Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Strong, Mr. Austin, and Mr. Balfour 
to a ball to be given to-night in the self-same 'all." It 
was of course impossible to refuse, though I contented 
myself with putting in a very brief appearance. One 
glance was sufficient; the ball went off like a rocket 
from the start. I had only time to watch Belle career- 
ing around with a gallant blue-jacket of exactly her own 
height — the standard of the British navy — an excel- 
lent dancer and conspicuously full of small-talk — and 
to hear a remark from a beachcomber, "It's a nice 
sight this some way, to see the officers dancing like 
this with the men, but I tell you, sir, these are the men 
that'll fight together!" 

I tell you, Colvin, the acquaintance of the men — and 
boys — makes me feel patriotic. Eeles in particular is a 
man whom I respect. I am half in a mind to give him 
a letter of introduction to you when he goes home. In 
case you feel inclined to make a little of him, give him 
a dinner, ask Henry James to come to meet him, etc. — 
you might let me know. I don't know that he would 
show his best, but he is a remarkably fine fellow, in 
every department of life. 

We have other visitors in port. A Count Festitics de 
Solna, an Austrian officer, a very pleasant, simple, boy- 
ish creature, with his young wife, daughter of an Amer- 
ican millionaire, he is a friend of our own Captain Wurm- 
brand, and it is a great pity Wurmbrand is away. 

295 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 Glad you saw and liked Lysaght. He has left in our 
■^"^^' house a most cheerful and pleasing memory, as a good, 
pleasant, brisk fellow with good health and brains, and 
who enjoys himself and makes other people happy. I 
am glad he gave you a good report of our surroundings 
and way of life; but I knew he would, for I believe he 
had a glorious time — and gave one.^ 

I am on fair terms with the two Treaty oificials, 
though all such intimacies are precarious ; with the con- 
suls, I need not say, my position is deplorable. The 
President (Herr Emil Schmidt) is a rather dreamy man, 
whom I like. Lloyd, Graham and I go to breakfast 
with him to-morrow, the next day the whole party 
of us lunch on the Curafoa and go in the evening to a 
Bierabend at Dr. Funk's. We are getting up a paper- 
chase for the following week with some of the young 
German clerks, and have in view a sort of child's party 
for grown-up persons with kissing games, etc., here at 

1 Mr. S. R. Lysaght, author of The Marplot, etc. I may be allowed 
to quote the following sentences from a letter of this gentleman writ- 
ten when the news of our friend's death reached England: — *' So great 
was his power of winning love that though I knew him for less than a 
week I could have borne the loss of many a more intimate friend with 
less sorrow than Stevenson's. When I saw him, last Easter, there was 
no suggestion of failure of strength. After all I had heard of his deli- 
cacy I was astonished at his vigour. He was up at five, and at work 
soon after, and at eleven o'clock at night he was dancing on the floor 
of the big room while I played Scotch and Irish reels on the rickety 
piano. He would talk to me for hours of home and old friends, but 
with a wonderful cheerfulness, knowing himself banished from them 
for life and yet brought close to them by love. I confidently counted 
on his living; he took keen interest in my own poor work, and it was 
one of my ambitions to send him a book some day which would bet- 
ter deserve his attention." 

296 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Vailima. Such is the gay scene in which we move. 1894 
Now I have done something, though not as much as I ^^^' 
wanted, to give you an idea of how we are getting on, 
and I am keenly conscious that there are other letters to 
do before the mail goes. — Yours ever, 

R. L. Stevenson. 



297 



XLII 



Aug. 'jth. 

1894 My dear Colvin, — This is to inform you, sir, that on 
^"^' Sunday last (and this is Tuesday) I attained my ideal 
here, and we had a paper-chase in Vailele Plantation, 
about 15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all that 
could be wished. It is really better fun than following 
the hounds, since you have to be your own hound, and 
a precious bad hound I was, following every false scent 
on the whole course to the bitter end; but I came in 
3rd at the last on my little Jack, who stuck to it gal- 
lantly, and awoke the praises of some discriminating 
persons. (5 + 7 + 2-J = i4|- miles; yes, that is the 
count.) We had quite the old sensations of exhilara- 
tion, discovery, an appeal to a savage instinct; and 
I felt myself about 17 again, a pleasant experience. 
However, it was in the Sabbath Day, and I am now a 
pariah among the English, as if I needed any increment 
of unpopularity. I must not go again ; it gives so much 
unnecessary tribulation to poor people, and sure, we 
don't want to make tribulation. I have been forbidden 
to work, and have been instead doing my two or three 
hours in the plantation every morning. I only wish 
somebody would pay me ;£"io a day for taking care of 
cacao, and I could leave literature to others. Certainly, 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

if I have plenty of exercise, and no work, I feel much 1894 
better; but there is Biles the butcher! him we have al- ^^^' 
ways with us. 

I do not much like novels, I begin to think, but I am 
enjoying exceedingly Orme's History of Hindostan, a 
lovely book in its way, in large quarto, with a quantity 
of maps, and written in a very lively and solid eighteenth 
century way, never picturesque except by accident and 
from a kind of conviction, and a fme sense of order. No 
historian I have ever read is so minute; yet he never 
gives you a word about the people; his interest is en- 
tirely limited in the concatenation of events, into which 
he goes with a lucid, almost superhuman, and wholly 
ghostly gusto. " By the ghost of a mathematician " the 
book might be announced. A very brave, honest book. 

Your letter to hand. 

Fact is, I don't like the picter.^ Oh, it's a good pic- 
ture, but if you ask me, you know, I believe, stoutly be- 
lieve, that mankind, including you, are going mad; I am 
not in the midst with the other frenzy dancers, so I 
don't catch it wholly, and when you shew me a thing 
— and ask me, don't you know — Well, well ! Glad to 
get so good an account of the Amateur Emigrant. 
Talking of which, I am strong for making a volume out 
of selections from the South Sea letters; I read over 
again the King of Apemama, and it is good in spite of 
your teeth, and a real curiosity, a thing that can never 
be seen again, and the group is annexed and Tembinoka 
dead. I wonder couldn't you send out to me, the first 
five Butaritari letters and the Low Archipelago ones 

1 A proposed frontispiece for one of tlie volumes of the Edinburgh 
Edition. 

299 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 (both of which I have lost or mislaid) and I can chop 
^^^' out a perfectly fair volume of what I wish to be pre- 
served. It can keep for the last of the series. 

Travels and Excursions, vol. 11. Should it not in- 
clude a paper on S. F. from the Mag: of Art ? The A. 
E., the New Pacific capital, the Old ditto. Silver. 
Squat. This would give all my works on the States ; 
and though it ain't very good, it's not so very bad. 
Travels and Excursions, vol. in., to be these resusci- 
tated letters — Miscellanies, vol. 11. — comme vous vou- 
dre:{^, cher monsieur ! 

Monday, Aug. i^th. 

I have a sudden call to go up the coast and must hur- 
ry up with my information. There has suddenly come 
to our naval commanders the need of action, they're 
away up the coast bombarding the Atua rebels. All 
morning on Saturday the sound of the bombardment of 
Lotuanu'u kept us uneasy. To-day again the big guns 
have been sounding further along the coast. 

To-morrow morning early I am off up the coast my- 
self. Therefore you must allow me to break off here 
without further ceremony. — Yours ever, 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 



300 



XLIII 



Vailima, 1894. 

My dear Colvin, — This must be a very measly letter. 1894 
I have been trying hard to get along with St. Ives. 1 ^^P*' 
should now lay it aside for a year, and I dare say I 
should make something of it after all. Instead of that, 
I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself, and 
spoil the book, if there were anything to spoil, which I 
am far from saying. I'm as sick of the thing as ever any 
one can be; it's a rudderless hulk; it's a pagoda, and you 
can just feel — or I can feel — that it might have been a 
pleasant story, if it had been only blessed at baptism. 

Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result 
is still doubtful. 

Sept. lotb. 

I know I have something else to say to you, but un- 
fortunately I awoke this morning with collywobbles, 
and had to take a small dose of laudanum with the 
usual consequences of dry throat, intoxicated legs, par- 
tial madness and total imbecility; and for the life of me 
I cannot remember what it is. I have likewise mislaid 
your letter amongst the accumulations on my table, not 
that there was anything in it. Altogether 1 am in a 
poor state. I forgot to tell Baxter that the dummy had , 

301 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 turned up and is a fine, personable-looking volume and 
Sept. ^gj.y gQQ(j^ reading. Please communicate this to him. 
I have just remembered an incident that I really must 
not let pass. You have heard a great deal more than 
you wanted about our political prisoners. Well, one 
day, about a fortnight ago, the last of them was set free 
— Old Poe, whom I think I must have mentioned to you, 
the father-in-law of my cook, was one that I had had a 
great deal of trouble with. I had taken the doctor to 
see him, got him out on sick leave, and when he was 
put back again gave bail for him. I must not forget 
that my wife ran away with him out of the prison on 
the doctor's orders and with the complicity of our friend 
the gaoler, who really and truly got the sack for the ex- 
ploit. As soon as he was finally liberated, Poe called 
a meeting of his fellow-prisoners. All Sunday they 
were debating what they were to do, and on Monday 
morning 1 got an obscure hint from Talolo that I must 
expect visitors during the day who were coming to con- 
sult me. These consultations I am now very well used 
to, and seeing first, that I generally don't know what 
to advise, and second that they sometimes don't take 
my advice — though in some notable cases they have 
taken it, generally to my own wonder with pretty good 
results — I am not very fond of these calls. They min- 
ister to a sense of dignity, but not peace of mind, and 
consume interminable time, always in the morning too, 
when I can't afford it. However, this was to be a new 
sort of consultation. Up came Poe and some eight other 
chiefs, squatted in a big circle around the old dining- 
room floor, now the smoking-room. And the family 
being represented by Lloyd, Graham, Belle, Austin and 

302 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

myself proceeded to exchange the necessary courtesies. 1894 
Then their talking-man began. He said that they had ^^P^' 
been in prison, that I had always taken an interest in 
them, that they had now been set at liberty without 
condition, whereas some of the other chiefs who had 
been liberated before them were still under bond to work 
upon the roads, and that this had set them considering 
what they might do to testify their gratitude. They 
had therefore agreed to work upon my road as a free 
gift. They went on to explain that it was only to be 
on my road, on the branch that joins my house with 
the public way. 

Now I was very much gratified at this compliment, 
although (to one used to natives) it seemed rather a 
hollow one. It meant only that I should have to lay 
out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give 
wages under the guise of presents to some workmen 
who were most of them old and in ill-health. Conceive 
how much I was surprised and touched when I heard 
the whole scheme explained to me. They were to re- 
turn to their provinces, and collect their families ; some 
of the young men were to live in Apia with a boat, and 
ply up and down the coast to A'ana and A'tua (our own 
Tuamasaga being quite drained of resources) in order 
to supply the working squad with food. Tools they did 
ask for, but it was especially mentioned that I was to make 
no presents. In short, the whole of this little ''presen- 
tation " to me had been planned with a good deal more 
consideration than goes usually with a native campaign. 

(I sat on the opposite side of the circle to the talking-man. His face 
was quite calm and high-bred as he went through the usual Samoan 
expressions of politeness and compliment, but when he came on to the 

303 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 object of their visit, on their love and gratitude to Tusitala, how his 
Sept. name was always in their prayers, and his goodness to them, when they 
had no other friend, was their most cherished memory, he warmed up 
to real, burning, genuine feeling. I had never seen the Samoan mask 
of reserve laid aside before, and it touched me more than anything 
else. A.M.) 

This morning as ever was, bright and early up came 
the whole gang of them, a lot of sturdy, common-look- 
ing lads they seemed to be for the most part, and fell to 
on my new road. Old Poe was in the highest of good 
spirits, and looked better in health than he has done 
any time in two years, being positively rejuvenated by 
the success of his scheme. He jested as he served out 
the new tools, and I am sorry to say damned the Gov- 
ernment up hill and down dale, probably with a view 
to show off his position as a friend of the family before 
his work-boys. Now, whether or not their impulse 
will last them through the road does not matter to me 
one hair. It is the fact that they have attempted it, 
that they have volunteered and are now really trying to 
execute a thing that was never before heard of in Samoa. 
Think of it ! It is road-making — the most fruitful cause 
(after taxes) of all rebellions in Samoa, a thing to which 
they could not be wiled with money nor driven by 
punishment. It does give me a sense of having done 
something in Samoa after all. 

Now there's one long story for you about' * my blacks. " 
— Yours ever, 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 



304 



XLIV 

Vailima, Samoa, Oct. 6th, 1894. 

My dear Colvin, — We have had quite an interesting ,894 
month and mostly in consideration of that road which Oct. 
I think I told you was about to be made. It was made 
without a hitch, though I confess I was considerably 
surprised. When they got through, I wrote a speech 
to them, sent it down to a Missionary to be translated, 
and invited the lot to a feast. I thought a good deal 
of this feast. The occasion was really interesting. I 
wanted to pitch it in hot. And I wished to have as 
many influential witnesses present as possible. Well, 
as it drew towards the day I had nothing but refusals. 
Everybody supposed it was to be a political occasion, 
that 1 had made a hive of rebels up here, and was going 
to push for new hostilities. 

The Amanuesis has been ill, and after the above trial 
petered out. I must return to my own, lone Waverley. 
The captain refused, telling me why : and at last I had 
to beat up for people almost with prayers. However, 
1 got a good lot as you will see by the accompanying 
newspaper report. The road contained this inscription, 
drawn up by the chiefs themselves : 

''The Road of Gratitude." 

305 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 " Considering the great love of Tusitala in his loving 
care of us in our distress in the prison, we have there- 
fore prepared a splendid gift. It shall never be muddy, 
it shall endure for ever, this road that we have dug." 
This the newspaper reporter could not give, not know- 
ing any Samoan. The same reason explains his refer- 
ences to Seumanutafa's speech, which was not long 
and was important, for it was a speech of courtesy and 
forgiveness to his former enemies. It was very much 
applauded. Secondly, it was not Po'e, it was Mataafa 
(don't confuse with Mataafa) who spoke for the prison- 
ers. Otherwise it is extremely correct. 

I beg your pardon for so much upon my aboriginals. 
Even you must sympathize with me in this unheard- 
of compliment, and my having been able to deliver so 
severe a sermon with acceptance. It remains a nice 
point of conscience what I should wish done in the 
matter. I think this meeting, its immediate results, 
and the terms of what I said to them, desirable to be 
known. It will do a little justice to me, who have not 
had too much justice done me. At the same time, to 
send this report to the papers is truly an act of self-ad- 
vertisement, and I dislike the thought. Query, in a 
man who has been so much calumniated, is that not 
justifiable? I do not know; be my judge. Mankind 
is too complicated for me; even myself. Do I wish to 
advertise.^ I think I do, God help me! I have had 
hard times here, as every man must have who mixes 
up with public business; and I bemoan myself, know- 
ing that all 1 have done has been in the interest of peace 
and good government; and having once delivered my 

306 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

mind, I would like it, I think, to be made public. But 1894 
the other part of me regimbs.^ ^^' 

I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by 
their wits, so I do not despair. But the truth is I am 
pretty nearly useless at literature, and I will ask you to 
spare St. Ive-s when it goes to you ; it is a sort of Count 
Robert of Paris. But I hope rather a Dombey and Son, 
to be succeeded by Our Mutual Friend and Great Ex- 
pectations and A Tale of Two Cities. No toil has been 
spared over the ungrateful canvas ; and it will not come 
together, and I must live, and my family. Were it not 
for my health, which made it impossible, I could not 
find it in my heart to forgive myself that 1 did not stick 
to an honest, commonplace trade when I was young, 
which might have now supported me during these ill 
years. But do not suppose me to be down in anything 
else; only, for the nonce, my skill deserts me, such as 
it is, or was. It was a very little dose of inspiration, 
and a pretty little trick of style, long lost, improved by 
the most heroic industry. So far, I have managed to 
please the journalists. But I am a fictitious article and 
have long known it. I am read by journalists, by my 
fellow-novelists, and by boys ; with these, incipit et ex- 
plicit my vogue. Good thing anyway ! for it seems to 
have sold the Edition. And I look forward confidently 

1 It seemed an obvious duty to publish the speech in question through 
the English press, as the best proof both of Stevenson's wise and un- 
derstanding methods of dealing v^ith his native friends, and of the affec- 
tion and authority v/hich he enjoyed among them. I have reprinted 
it, as a necessary supplement to this letter, in an appendix to the pres- 
ent volume. 

307 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 to an aftermath; I do not think my health can be so 
' hugely improved, without some subsequent improve- 
ment in my brains. Though, of course, there is the 
possibility that literature is a morbid secretion, and ab- 
hors health ! I do not think it is possible to have fewer 
illusions than I. I sometimes wish I had more. They 
are amusing. But I cannot take myself seriously as an 
artist; the limitations are so obvious. I did take my- 
self seriously as a workman of old, but my practice has 
fallen off. I am now an idler and cumberer of the 
ground ; it may be excused to me perhaps by twenty 
years of industry and ill-health, which have taken the 
cream off the milk. 

As I was writing this last sentence, I heard the stri- 
dent rain drawing near across the forest, and by the time 
I was come to the word "cream" it burst upon my 
roof, and has since redoubled, and roared upon it. A 
very welcome change. All smells of the good wet 
earth, sweetly, with a kind of Highland touch ; the crys- 
tal rods of the shower, as I look up, have drawn their 
criss-cross over everything ; and a gentle and very wel- 
come coolness comes up around me in little draughts, 
blessed draughts, not chilling, only equalizing the tem- 
perature. Now the rain is off in this spot, but I hear it 
roaring still in the nigh neighbourhood — and that mo- 
ment, I was driven from the verandah by random rain 
drops, spitting at me through the Japanese blinds. 
These are not tears with which the page is spotted! 
Now the windows stream, the roof reverberates. It is 
good; it answers something which is in my heart; I 
know not what; old memories of the wet moorland 
belike. 

308 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

Well, it has blown by again, and I am in my place 
once more, with an accompaniment of perpetual drip- 
ping on the verandah — and very much inclined for a 
chat. The exact subject I do not know! It will be 
bitter at least, and that is strange, for my attitude is es- 
sentially not bitter, but I have come into these days 
when a man sees above all the seamy side, and I have 
dwelt some time in a small place where he has an op- 
portunity of reading little motives that he would miss 
in the great world, and indeed, to-day, I am almost 
ready to call the world an error. Because } Because I 
have not drugged myself with successful work, and 
there are all kinds of trifles buzzing in my ear, unfriendly 
trifles, from the least to the — well, to the pretty big. 
All these that touch me are Pretty Big; and yet none 
touch me in the least, if rightly looked at, except the 
one eternal burthen to go on making an income. If I 
could find a place where I could lie down and give up 
for (say) two years, and allow the sainted public to 
support me, if it were a lunatic asylum, wouldn't I go, 
just! But we can't have both extremes at once, worse 
luck! I should like to put my savings into a proprie- 
tarian investment, and retire in the meanwhile into a 
communistic retreat, which is double-dealing. But you 
men with salaries don't know how a family weighs on 
a fellow's mind. 

I hear the article in next week's Herald is to be a 
great affair, and all the officials who came to me the 
other day are to be attacked! This is the unpleasant 
side of being (without a salary) in public life; I will 
leave any one to judge if my speech was well intended, 
and calculated to do good. It was even daring — I assure 

309 



1894 

Oct. 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

1894 you one of the chiefs looked like a fiend at my descrip- 
' tion of Samoan warfare. Your warning was not needed ; 
we are all determined to keep the peace and to hold our 
peace. I know, my dear fellow, how remote all this 
sounds ! Kindly pardon your friend. I have my life to 
live here; these interests are for me immediate; and if I 
do not write of them, I might as soon not write at all. 
There is the difficulty in a distant correspondence. It 
is perhaps easy for me to enter into and understand 
your interests; I own it is difficult for you; but you 
must just wade through them for friendship's sake, and 
try to find tolerable what is vital for your friend. I can- 
not forbear challenging you to it, as to intellectual lists. 
It is the proof of intelligence, the proof of not being a 
barbarian, to be able to enter into something outside of 
oneself, something that does not touch one's next 
neighbour in the city omnibus. 

Good-bye, my lord. May your race continue and 
you flourish. — Yours ever, 

TUSITALA. 



310 



EPILOGUE 

The tenor of these last letters of Stevenson's to me, 
and of others written to several of his friends at the 
same time, seemed to give just cause for anxiety. In- 
deed, as the reader will have perceived, a gradual change 
had during the past months been coming over the tone 
of his correspondence. It was not like him to be sen- 
sitive to a rough word in a friendly review, nor to recur 
with so much feeling to my unlucky complaint, quickly 
regretted and withdrawn, as to his absorption in native 
affairs and local interests. To judge by these letters, 
his old invincible spirit of inward cheerfulness was be- 
ginning to give way to moods of depression and over- 
strained feeling; although to those about him, it seems, 
his charming habitual sweetness and gaiety of temper 
were undiminished. Again, it was a new thing in his 
life that he should thus painfully feel the strain of liter- 
ary work, at almost all other times his chief delight and 
pastime, and should express the longing to lay it down. 
His friend Mr. Charles Baxter and I at once telegraphed 
to him, as the success of the Edinburgh Edition enabled 
us to do, in terms intended to ease his mind and to in- 
duce him to take the rest of which he seemed so ur- 
gently in need. It seems doubtful if our words were 
fully understood : it is more doubtful still if that ever- 

311 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

shaping mind had retained any capacity for rest, except, 
as he had himself foretold, the rest of the grave. At 
any rate he took none, but on receipt of our message 
only turned to his old expedient, a change of labour. 
He gave up for a while the attempt to finish St. Ives ; a. 
task as to which I may say that he had no occasion to 
write so despondingly, for as a tale of adventure, man- 
ners, and the road, which is all it was meant to be, it 
will be found a very spirited and entertaining piece, 
lacking, indeed, the denouement, and containing a chap- 
ter or two which the author would doubtless have 
cancelled or recast, but others which are in almost his 
happiest manner of invention and narrative. He gave 
this up, and turned to a more arduous theme, the tragic 
story of the Scottish moorlands, in which the varieties 
and the strength of border character were to be illus- 
trated in the Four Brothers of Cauldstaneslap, and the 
Hanging Judge was to be called upon like Brutus to 
condemn his son, and the two Kirsties, younger and 
elder, were to embody one the wavering and the other 
heroic soul of woman. 

On this theme, which had already been working in 
his mind for some years, he felt his inspiration return, 
and laboured during the month of November and the 
first days of December at the full pitch of his powers 
and in the conscious happiness of their exercise. About 
the same time various external circumstances occurred 
to give him pleasure. The incident of the road- 
making, as the reader has seen, had brought home to 
him as nothing else could have done the sense of the 
love and gratitude he had won from the island people 
and their chiefs, and of the power he was able to exer- 

312 



EPILOGUE 

cise on them for their good. Soon afterwards, the an- 
niversaries of his own birthday and of the American 
thanksgiving feast brought evidences hardly less wel- 
come, after so much contention and annoyance as the 
island affairs and politics had involved him in, of the 
honour and affection in which he was held by all that 
was best in the white community. By each succeeding 
mail came stronger proofs from home of the manner in 
which men of letters of the younger generation had 
come to regard him as their master, their literary con- 
science and example, and above all their friend. Deep- 
est, perhaps, of all lay that pleasure of feeling himself to 
be working once more at his best. Of the many and 
various gifts of this brilliant spirit — adventurer, ob- 
server, humorist, moralist, essayist, poet, critic, and ro- 
mancer — of all his many and various gifts, the master 
gift was assuredly the creative, the gift of human and 
historical imagination. It was not in vain that his isl- 
anders called him Tusitala. Teller of tales he had been, 
first and foremost, from his childhood; seer into the 
hearts and fates of men and women he was growing to 
be more and more. The time was now ripe — had 
only the strength sufficed — for his career as a creative 
writer to enter upon a new and ampler phase. The 
fragment on which he wrought during the last month 
of his life gives to my mind (as it did to his own) for 
the first time the full measure of his powers ; and if in 
the literature of romance there is to be found work more 
masterly, of more piercing human insight or more con- 
centrated imaginative vision and beauty, I do not 
know it. 

But to enter on such a task under such conditions was 
313 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

of all his adventures the most adventurous. The Pa- 
cific climate had brought him, as we have seen, a re- 
newal for some years of nervous energy and joy in liv- 
ing, but it may be doubted if that climate is ever truly 
and in the long run restorative to men of northern 
blood. At any rate it demands as a condition of health 
some measure of repose, and to repose he had, here as 
elsewhere, been a stranger. He entered upon his new 
labour, taxing alike to heart and mind, with all the fibres 
of his brain long strained by unremitting toil in the 
tropic heats he loved. Readers will remember the gal- 
lant doctrine of his early essay, ''By all means begin 
your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, 
even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave 
push, and see what can be accomplished in a week. It 
is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to 
honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who 
means execution, which outlives the most untimely 
end." In a temper truly accordant with this doctrine 
he applied himself to his new task, and before it was 
fully half accomplished the doom so long foreshadowed 
and so little feared had overtaken him ; he had died as 
he would have desired to die, and fallen smiling in the 
midst of the battle. That he was more or less distinctly 
aware of the imminence of the blow we may gather 
from the tenor of some of his letters written in these 
weeks. On the last day of his life, after a morning of 
happy work and pleasant correspondence, he was seen 
gazing long and wistfully at the mountain summit 
which he had chosen to be his burial-place. Towards 
the evening of the same day, he was talking gaily with 
his wife, and trying to reassure her under the sense of 

314 



EPILOGUE 

coming calamity which oppressed her, when the sud- 
den rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain laid him, al- 
most in a moment, unconscious at her feet ; and before 
two hours were over he had passed away. To the 
English-speaking world he has left behind a treasure 
which it would be vain as yet to attempt to estimate; 
to the profession of letters one of the most ennobling and 
inspiring of examples; and to his friends an image of 
the memory more vivid and more dear than are the 
presences of almost any of the living . 



3»5 



APPENDIX 

Address to the Chiefs on the opening of the Road of 
Gratitude, October, 1894 

Mr. Stevenson said: ''We are met together to-day 
to celebrate an event and to do honour to certain chiefs, 
my friends, — Lelei, Mataafa, Salevao, Po'e, Teleso, Tu- 
puola Lotofaga, Tupuola Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, and 
Fatialofa. You are all aware in some degree of what has 
happened. You know these chiefs to have been pris- 
oners ; you perhaps know that during the term of their 
confinement, I had it in my power to do them certain 
favours. One thing some of you cannot know, that 
they were immediately repaid by answering attentions. 
They were liberated by the new administration ; by the 
King, and the Chief Justice, and the Ta'its'ifono, who 
are here amongst us to-day, and to whom we all desire 
to tender our renewed and perpetual gratitude for that 
favour. As soon as they were free men — owing no 
man anything — instead of going home to their own 
places and families, they came to me; they offered to do 
this work for me as a free gift, without hire, without 
supplies, and I was tempted at first to refuse their offer. 
I knew the country to be poor, I knew famine threaten- 
ing; I knew their families long disorganised for want 

316 



APPENDIX 

of supervision. Yet I accepted, because I thought the 
lesson of that road might be more useful to Samoa than 
a thousand breadfruit trees ; and because to myself it 
was an exquisite pleasure to receive that which was so 
handsomely offered. It is now done; you have trod it 
to-day in coming hither. It has been made for me by 
chiefs; some of them old, some sick, all newly delivered 
from a harassing confinement, and in spite of weather 
unusually hot and insalubrious. I have seen these chiefs 
labour valiantly with their own hands upon the work, 
and I have set up over it, now that it is finished, the 
name of ' The Road of Gratitude ' (the road of loving 
hearts) and the names of those that built it. * In per- 
petuam memoriam,' we say and speak idly. At least so 
long as my own life shall be spared, it shall be here per- 
petuated; partly for my pleasure and in my gratitude; 
partly for others; to continually publish the lesson of 
this road." 

Addressing himself to the chiefs, Mr. Stevenson then 
said : — 

" I will tell you. Chiefs, that, when I saw you work- 
ing on that road, my heart grew warm ; not with grat- 
itude only, but with hope. It seemed to me that I read 
the promise of something good for Samoa; it seemed to 
me, as I looked at you, that you were a company of 
warriors in a battle, fighting for the defence of our 
common country against all aggression. For there is a 
time to fight, and a time to dig. You Samoans may 
fight, you may conquer twenty times, and thirty times, 
and all will be in vain. There is but one way to defend 
Samoa. Hear it before it is too late. It is to make 
roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell 

317 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

their produce wisely, and, in one word, to occupy and 
use your country. If you do not, others will." 

The speaker then referred to the parable of the 
*' Talents," Matt. xxv. 14-30, and continuing, impres- 
sively asked: '* What are you doing with your talent, 
Samoa ? Your three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila ? 
have you buried it in a napkin } Not Upolu at least. 
You have rather given it out to be trodden under feet 
of swine: and the swine cut down food trees and burn 
houses, according to the nature of swine, or of that 
much worse animal, foolish man, acting according to 
his folly. * Thou knewest that I reap where I sowed 
not, and gather where 1 have not strawed.' But God 
has both sown and strawed for you here in Samoa; 
He has given you a rich soil, a splendid sun, copious 
rain; all is ready to your hand, half done. And I re- 
peat to you that thing which is sure : if you do not oc- 
cupy and use your country, others will. It will not 
continue to be yours or your children's, if you occupy 
it for nothing. You and your children will in that case 
be cast out into outer darkness, where shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth ; for that is the law of God which 
passeth not away. I who speak to you have seen these 
things. I have seen them with my eyes — these judg- 
ments of God. I have seen them in Ireland, and I have 
seen them in the mountains of my own country — 
Scotland — and my heart was sad. These were a fine 
people in the past — brave, gay, faithful, and very much 
like Samoans, except in one particular, that they were 
much wiser and better at that business of fighting of 
which you think so much. But the time came to them 
as it now comes to you, and it did not find them ready. 

318 



APPENDIX 

The messenger came into their villages and they did 
not know him ; they were told, as you are told, to use 
and occupy their country, and they would not hear. 
And now you may go through great tracts of the land 
and scarce meet a man or a smoking house, and see 
nothing but sheep feeding. The other people that I tell 
you of have come upon them like a foe in the night, 
and these are the other people's sheep who browse 
upon the foundation of their houses. To come nearer; 
and I have seen this judgment in Oahu also. I have 
ridden there the whole day along the coast of an island. 
Hour after hour went by and I saw the face of no living 
man except that of the guide who rode with me. All 
along that desolate coast, in one bay after another, we 
saw, still standing, the churches that have been built by 
the Hawaiians of old. There must have been many 
hundreds, many thousands, dwelling there in old times, 
and worshipping God in these now empty churches. 
For to-day they were empty; the doors were closed, 
the villages had disappeared, the people were dead and 
gone; only the church stood on like a tombstone over 
a grave, in the midst of the white men's sugar fields. 
The other people had come and used that country, and 
the Hawaiians who occupied it for nothing had been 
swept away, ' where is weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 
**I do not speak of this lightly, because I love Samoa 
and her people. I love the land, I have chosen it to be 
my home while I live, and my grave after I am dead; 
and I love the people, and have chosen them to be my 
people to live and die with. And I see that the day is 
come now of the great battle; of the great and the last 
opportunity by which it shall be decided, whether you 

319 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

are to pass away like thes"e other races of which I have 
been speaking, or to stand fast and have your children 
living on and honouring your memory in the land you 
received of your fathers. 

'*The Land Commission and the Chief Justice will 
soon have ended their labours. Much of your land will 
be restored to you, to do what you can with. Now is 
the time the messenger is come into your villages to 
summon you; the man is come with the measuring 
rod: the fire is lighted in which you shall be tried; 
whether you are gold or dross. Now is the time for 
the true champions of Samoa to stand forth. And who 
is the true champion of Samoa ? It is not the man who 
blackens his face, and cuts down trees, and kills pigs 
and wounded men. It is the man who makes roads, 
who plants food trees, who gathers harvests, and is a 
profitable servant before the Lord, using and improving 
that great talent that has been given him in trust. That 
is the brave soldier; that is the true champion; because 
all things in a country hang together like the links of 
the anchor cable, one by another : but the anchor itself 
is industry. 

'* There is a friend of most of us, who is far away; 
not to be forgotten where I am, where Tupuola is, where 
Po'e Lelei, Mataafa, Solevao, Po'e Teleso, Tupuola Loto- 
faga, Tupuolo Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, Fatialofa, Lem- 
usu are. He knew what I am telling you; no man bet- 
ter. He saw the day was come when Samoa had to 
walk in a new path, and to be defended, not only with 
guns and blackened faces, and the noise of men shout- 
ing, but by digging and planting, reaping and sowing. 
When he was still here amongst us, he busied himself 

320 



APPENDIX 

planting cacao ; he was anxious and eager about agri- 
culture and commerce, and spoke and wrote continually ; 
so that when we turn our minds to the same matters, 
we may tell ourselves that we are still obeying Mataafa. 
Ua tautala mai pea o ia ua mamao. 

" I know that I do not speak to idle or foolish hearers. 
I speak to those who are not too proud to work for 
gratitude. Chiefs ! You have worked for Tusitala, and 
he thanks you from his heart. In this, I could wish you 
could be an example to all Samoa — I wish every chief 
in these islands would turn to, and work, and build 
roads, and sow fields, and plant food trees, and educate 
his children and improve his talents — not for love of 
Tusitala, but for the love of his brothers, and his chil- 
dren, and the whole body of generations yet unborn. 

** Chiefs! On this road that you have made many 
feet shall follow. The Romans were the bravest and 
greatest of people! mighty men of their hands, glorious 
fighters and conquerors. To this day in Europe you 
may go through parts of the country where all is marsh 
and bush, and perhaps after struggling through a thicket, 
you shall come forth upon an ancient road, solid and 
useful as the day it was made. You shall see men and 
women bearing their burdens along that even way, and 
you may tell yourself that it was built for them perhaps 
fifteen hundred years before, — perhaps before the com- 
ing of Christ, — by the Romans. And the people still 
remember and bless them for that convenience, and say 
to one another, that as the Romans were the bravest 
men to fight, so they were the best at building roads. 

"Chiefs! Our road is not built to last a thousand 
years, yet in a sense it is. When a road is once built, 

321 



VAILIMA LETTERS 

it is a Strange thing how it collects traific, how every 
year as it goes on, more and more people are found to 
walk thereon, and others are raised up to repair and per- 
petuate it, and keep it alive ; so that perhaps even this 
road of ours may, from reparation to reparation, continue 
to exist and be useful hundreds and hundreds of years 
after we are mingled in the dust. And it is my hope 
that our far-away descendants may remember and bless 
those who laboured for them to-day." 



322 



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